i  ?£".&; 

.,    :  ~r 

To  all  good  men  and  women  of  every  race 
throughout  the  world,  in  the  past,  the  present,  and 
in  the  future,  this  effort  is 

DEDICATED 
AND  SACRED  TO  THE  MEMORY  OF  MY  WIFE, 

CHARLOTTE  JOSEPHINE  BROADHART  POWHATAN 
TAYLOR, 

and  my  boy, 

GESAR  ANDREW  AUGUSTUS  POWHATAN 
TAYLOR,  JR. 


G  O 
THOU 

Annihilate  wrong 

Wherever  found — 
Blaze  a  path ;  illumine 

The  way  to  freedom, 
And  crown  at  last 

The  Brotherhood  of  Man 
With  the  Fatherhood  of  God. 

— Ceesar  Andrew  Augustus  P.  Taylor. 


4.2O487 


NOT   HEATHENS? 

WHAT 

SHOULD  You 
EXPECT  OF  THEM? 

NOT  HEATHENS! 
They  say  they  are  not. 
Observe  them  as  I  shall  throw  the  light  upon  them. 

NOT  HEATHENS! 

What  should  you  expect  of  them  ? 

See  them  in  this,  and  my  larger  book  to  follow  this. 


AUTHOR'S  FOREWORD. 

The  manuscript  comprising  this  book  was  written 
and  intended  to  be  published  in  1910,  since  which 
time  many  things  political  have  happened;  notably: 
the  complete  rout  and  disintegration  of  the  "Gang" 
Republican  ( ?)  machine  in  Philadelphia,  Pa, 
through  the  triumphant  election  of  Rudolph  Blanken- 
burg  as  Mayor,  along  with  practically  every  candi- 
date slated  by  the  Keystone  or  Reform  Party. 

Second. — The  disruption  of  the  Republican  party 
throughout  the  nation,  culminating  in  the  birth  of  a 
new  National  Political  organization;  the  Washing- 
ton or  Progressive  Party  at  Chicago,  111.,  during  the 
week  of  August  5th,  1912. 

Third. — A  political  revolution  throughout  the  na- 
tion which  in  a  day  changed  completely  the  political 
complexion  of  the  National  Government  through  the 
election  of  Woodrow  Wilson,  a  Democratic  candi- 
date to  the  Presidency,  along  with  a  Democratic  ma- 
jority in  both  the  United  States  Senate  and  House  of 
Representatives.  Throughout  all  this  political  up- 
heaval the  Negro  has  been  a  tremendous  factor,  play- 
ing a  conspicuous  part.  In  this  connection  I  as  an 
individual  played  my  part. 

I  have  just  been  amused  by  looking  over  the  daily 
and  weekly  papers,  religious  and  secular,  as  pub- 
lished in  Philadelphia  by  the  white  and  colored  race 
during  the  last  Mayoralty  campaign,  and  then  as 
now,  they,  one  and  all,  predicted  in  glowing  head- 
lines accompanied  with  photo  cuts  and  column  write- 
ups,  the  sweeping  victories  of  every  candidate  but 
the  one  who  actually  won,  and  that  was  Rudolph 


11 

Blankenburg,  who  upset  all  calculations  and  sur- 
prised them  all  by  making  a  "Clean  Sweep"  in  his 
election  to  the  mayorality  which  was  foreseen,  and 
predicted  in  the  April,  1910,  issue  of  Taylor's  Maga- 
zine. Why  was  I  able  to  do  this?  Because  I  wear 
no  man's  collar,  politically,  and  am  not  subsidized  with 
a  dollar  itching  palm.  I  saw  what  was  best  for  the 
people's  interest,  and  though  but  a  poor  man  I  spent 
my  own  money  in  pushing  Taylor's  Magazine 
through  every  news-stand  in  the  populous  part  of  the 
city,  and  by  sandwich  sign  advertisement  employing 
twelve  men  at  one  dollar  ($1.00)  and  board  per  day. 

Through  this  medium  I  created  the  Anti-Contrac- 
tor Boss  Mayoralty  issue,  culminating  in  the  fulfill- 
ment of  my  prediction  against  the  combined  subsi- 
dized white  and  Negro  secular  and  so-called  relig- 
ious press  of  the  city.  I  have  played  the  game  of 
politics  for  more  than  twenty-five  years;  associated 
with  many  of  the  ablest  white  and  Negro  politicians 
of  this  country,  and  in  that  municipal  contest  I  felt 
to  know  that  I  was  "in  right"  for  what  was  all  the 
people's  best  interest.  Opposing  "Gang"  Republican 
( ?)  political  corruption  in  Philadelphia,  I  in  co- 
operation with  other  men,  issued  a  call  which  on  Au- 
gust the  2ist,  1912,  resulted  in  the  formation  of  the 
Union  Protective  Association,  with  branch  organi- 
zations throughout  the  forty-seven  wards  in  the  city, 
and  a  Central  Representative  Committee. 

I  was  made  chairman  of  the  Keystone  Party  or- 
ganization in  the  Fifteenth  Division  of  the  7th  Ward, 
and  later  chairman  of  the  Washington  or  Progressive 
Party  organization  in  the  same  division : 

Entering  the  fight  for  Roosevelt  and  Johnson  and 
the  Progressive  platform,  as  against  corrupt  Republi- 
can ( ?)  machine  politics,  in  the  last  presidential  cam- 
paign, I  was  elected  chairman  of  the  Resolutions 
Committee  for  the  Citizen's  Mass  Meeting  and  Rally 


Foreword  iii 

held  at  Musical  Fund  Hall,  Wednesday  evening,  Sep- 
tember 4th,  1912. 

As  chairman  of  that  committee,  I  framed  a  set  of 
resolutions  intended  to  be  read  at  the  mass  meet- 
ing, but  by  others  on  the  committee  who  were  more 
politic  than  patriotic  I  was  compelled  to  compromise 
by  having  incorporated  only  a  part  of  my  just  and 
truthful  arraignment  of  the  impotent  "Gang"  Repub- 
lican party. 

Hence,  I  give  here  in  full  the  resolutions  as  drawn 
by  me: 

Resolutions 

Whereas,  The  Negroes  in  the  United  States  of 
America  are  native  citizens  who  have  never  as  a 
race,  by  word  or  act,  proved  other  than  the  Nation's 
and  the  general  government's  most  patriotic  and 
loyal  defenders ;  in  spite  of  the  sad  fact  that  foreign 
aliens  and  others  who  resort  to  dynamite,  the  torch, 
the  dagger,  to  anarchistic  speech  and  in  other  ways 
disturb  and  threaten  the  peace  and  quietness  of  the 
state  and  nation  and  the  stability  of  the  government, 
are  preferred  always  before  them,  and 

Whereas,  We  view  with  just  alarm  increasing  race 
prejudice  in  the  Northern  states;  through  the  preach- 
ments of  Tillman,  Vardaman,  Tom  Dixon,  Hoke 
Smith  of  Georgia,  Blease  of  South  Carolina,  and 
others  like  them,  influencing  Northern  public  opinion 
through  the  press,  from  Chautauqua  lecture  plat- 
forms, and  even  by  demagogic  harangues  in  the 
United  States  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives 
against  the  race;  unchallenged  by  the  Republican 
party  which  the  Negroes  have  loyally  and  unflinch- 
ingly supported  with  their  ballot  at  every  election, 
local  and  national  for  near  half  a  century,  this,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  Republican  party  in  control 
of  both  the  legislative  and  executive  branches  of  the 


iv  Foreword 

general  government  during  all  these  years,  with  but 
a  single  intermittence,  have  been  apathetic  and  indif- 
ferent while  southern  Democratic  legislatures  have 
steadily,  through  the  enactment  of  "grandfather" 
clauses,  and  other  legislative  jugglery,  disfranchised 
and  segregated  the  Negro  citizenry  until  their  position 
in  the  Southern  states  is  a  political  nonentity  and  a 
farce  in  a  boasted  free  Republic.  Despite  the  fur- 
ther fact  that  the  United  States  Constitution  with  its 
several  amendments  afford  means  for  redress  and 
make  it  mandatory  upon  the  United  States  Congress 
that  redress  should  be  had  and  relief  afforded  the 
Negroes  from  legislative,  political  oppression  in  the 
southern  half  of  the  States,  and 

Whereas,  It  is  plainly  evident  to  all  fair  minded 
and  impartial  men  and  women  of  whatever  race  or 
party  that  the  Negro  vote  has  been  jockeyed  with  and 
used  by  the  Republican  party  of  the  nation  in  a  way 
to  conserve  the  political  interest  of  white  men,  most 
invariably  to  the  Negro's  detriment,  and  without  a 
care  as  to  the  moral,  industrial  and  political  effect 
upon  the  Negro's  status  as  an  American  citizen,  and 
Whereas,  This  apathy  on  the  part  of  the  Republi- 
can party  (the  Negro's  mentor  and  looked-to  Moses) 
and  its  utter  indifference  as  to  the  ungraciously  flag- 
rant injustice  meted  out  to  them  by  the  nation  consti- 
tutes a  grievance  painful  in  the  extreme  to  contem- 
plate, and 

Whereas,  The  once  great  Republican  party  of  the 
nation  has  now  become  so  commercialized  and  dollar 
itching  in  its  palm  (so  to  speak)  that  it  has  coquetted 
and  flirted  with  Bourbon  democrats  in  legislative 
financial  deals,  exploiting  the  municipalities,  the  states 
and  the  nation,  that  honor,  principle  and  general 
humane  interest  is  lost  sight  of  where  personal  and 
corporate  interest  intervenes  until  it  is  difficult  to 
distinguish  a  member  of  the  Republican  party  from 


Foreword  v 

one  of  the  Democratic  party,  excepting  by  name,  and 
Whereas,  In  the  great  state  of  Pennsylvania  under 
dominant  control  of  the  Republican  party,  with  its 
boasted  high  ideals  and  morals,  the  mob  spirit  resul- 
tant from  influence  of  Southern  teachings,  "Judge 
Lynch,"  with  all  its  defiance  of  law  and  judicial  pro- 
cedure dares  to  lift  its  head;  while  at  Harrisburg 
sits  a  supposed  Republican  Governor,  who  in  news- 
paper mouthings  makes  a  fuss  like  a  "tempest  in  a 
teapot,"  and  yet,  he  and  his  "Gang"  sponsors  do 
not  exert  their  prerogative  to  compel  a  change  of 
venue  in  order  to  secure  the  conviction  by  an  impar- 
tial court  in  another  county  of  the  state  of  the  self- 
confessed  murderers  of  Jack  Walker  at  Coatesville, 
Pa.,  and  yet,  all  the  "Gang"  Republican  political  ma- 
chinery is  industriously  at  work  finding  one  "Gang" 
made  judge  after  another  in  different  parts  of  the 
state  to  delay  the  serving  prison  sentences  of  election 
crooks  as  fast  as  an  honest  jury  convicts  and  an  hon- 
est Judge  is  found  to  sentence  them.  We  deplore 
crime,  whether  the  criminal  be  Jack  Walker,  the  ne- 
gro, or  the  white  election  crooks,  but  law  to  be  re- 
spected should  be  administered  without  favor  or  par- 
tiality ;  and 

Whereas,  In  the  legislative  district  embracing  the 
7th  Ward  in  the  First  Congressional  District,  and  in 
the  First  Senatorial  District  in  the  City  of  Phila- 
delphia, the  Negro  vote  numerically  is  such  that  no 
candidate  can  be  elected  from  either  without  receiv- 
ing that  vote,  and 

Whereas,  There  has  been  recently  erected  in  South 
Philadelphia  (the  Vare  "bossed"  section  of  the  city) 
a  public  place  of  amusement  known  as  Point  Breeze 
Park  or  The  Areodome,  the  management  of  which 
amusement  draws  the  "color  line,"  and  in  every  way 
endeavors  to  impress  upon  Negro  visitors  to  said 
park  that  their  presence  is  undesirable.  This  we  view 


vi  Foreword 

as  prejudicial  and  stultifying  to  the  Negro's  man- 
hood and  good  citizenship;  as  tending  to  impress 
upon  him  as  a  race  and  upon  others  that  he  is  infe- 
rior to  all  other  races;  even  to  aliens,  to  cats  and 
dogs,  to  which  no  objection  is  made ;  and 

Whereas,  In  this,  the  Washington  party  movement 
opportunity  is  afforded  to  cast  our  lot  with  citizens 
of  other  races  in  rebuking  with  our  ballots  the  mani- 
fest injustice  and  flagrant  abuses  of  which  we  justly 
complain,  and  to  do  this  without  registering  a  vote 
for  either  the  corrupt  Republican  or  Democratic 
parties ;  though  we  recognize  and  appreciate  the  fact 
that  there  are  many  good  and  noble  white  men  and 
women  who  are  friends  to  the  Negro  race,  and  who 
yet  feel  that  good  will  result  from  the  ascendancy 
to  power  of  one  or  the  other  of  the  two  old  parties — - 
according  to  which  one  they  may  be  adherents.  Not- 
withstanding this,  we  feel  to  see  not  alone  ours,  but 
the  interest  of  all  the  people  best  conserved  by  fol- 
lowing the  matchless  leadership  of  the  scholar,  dip- 
lomat, soldier-patriot  and  statesman,  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  and  the  Washington  party  as  pre-empted 
in  this  state  and  elsewhere  as  the  Progressive  or  Bull 
Moose  Party: 

Therefore  Resolved,  That  as  citizens  and  voters 
here  assembled,  we  endorse  and  ratify  the  nomination 
of  Theodore  Roosevelt,  and  Hiram  W.  Johnson,  as 
nominated  by  the  Progressive  National  Convention 
as  held  at  Chicago,  111.,  during  the  week  of  August 
5th,  this  1912. 

Resolved,  Further,  that  we  pledge  our  influence 
and  votes  to  no  candidate  for  office  from  either  the 
Legislative  District  embracing  the  7th  Ward,  the 
First  Congressional  District  and  the  First  Senatorial 
District  without  a  pledge  from  said  candidates  that  it 
will  be  their  aim  among  other  things  to  strive  hon- 
estly to  secure  and  demand  for  the  Negro  as  a  part 


Foreword  vii 

of  the  great  American  citizenry  just  and  equitable 
treatment  in  the  full  enjoyment  of  their  civil,  politi- 
cal and  industrial  rights  even  as  accorded  all  other 
American  citizens. 

Resolved,  Further,  that  a  committee  of  five  be  ap- 
pointed by  the  Chairman  to  wait  upon  the  candidate 
or  candidates  appealing  for  votes  from  either  the 
First  Senatorial  District,  the  First  Congressional  Dis- 
trict and  the  Legislative  District,  embracing  the  7th 
Ward,  and  acquaint  them  with  this  our  determina- 
tion: That  the  Negro  in  this  country  is  a  factor  po- 
litically and  otherwise  cannot  be  denied.  In  the  last 
Gubernatorial  campaign  in  Pennsylvania,  Harry  W. 
Bass,  a  Negro  (the  first  in  the  history  of  the  state) 
was  nominated  on  the  Republican  ticket,  and  elected 
from  the  Sixth  Legislative  District.  This  was  done 
to  save  the  Gubernatorial  ticket  from  opposition 
threatened  by  the  large  Negro  vote  of  the  state  on 
account  of  the  attitude  of  Tener,  the  Gubernatorial 
candidate,  toward  a  large  and  influential  Negro  ben- 
evolent and  fraternal  organization.  And  again,  in 
the  late  state  and  national  contest  the  Republican  ma- 
chine intending  to  nominate  a  white  man  to  succeed 
Bass,  they  hesitated  in  face  of  the  rapidly  growing 
sentiment  for  the  Progressive  Party  and  renominated 
Harry  W.  Bass ;  hoping  thereby  to  aid  in  saving  the 
electoral  vote  of  the  state  for  Taft  and  Sherman, 
the  Presidential  candidates.  Bass  was  re-elected,  but 
the  state's  electoral  vote  was  lost  to  Taft  and  Sher- 
man, being  polled  for  Roosevelt  and  Johnson.  This 
was  one  time  that  the  "Gang"  Republicans  jockeying 
with  the  Negro  vote  failed  to  "pan  out." 


Thomas  J.  Ryan,  the  man  who  set  up  Point  Breeze 
Park,  and  permitted  the  management  to  foster  a 
damnable  race  prejudice,  was  slain  by  his  own  soul's 


viii  Foreword 

conflict.  He  committed  suicide,  thus  emphasizing 
the  existence  of  a  retributive  nemesis  even  as  seen  in 
the  case  of  the  late  Jeff  Davis  of  Arkansas  whose 
brain  exploded  within,  he  dying  of  apoplexy ;  and  of 
Henry  W.  Grady,  who  died  suddenly  in  midst  of  his 
efforts  to  win  the  North  to  the  adoption  of  a  commer- 
cial and  industrial  policy  where  greed  subordinated 
the  nation's  attitude  of  justice  and  fair  play  toward 
the  Negro.  Gorman,  of  Maryland,  halted  by  death 
as  he  strove  to  re-enslave  the  Negro  by  efforts  of  dis- 
franchisement.  Rutherford  B.  Hayes,  cut  off  from 
earth  as  he  betrayed  the  Constitutional  guarantees  of 
the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amendments  to 
America's  15,000,000  black  souls.  James  A.  Garfield, 
providentially  stricken  by  an  inspired  mad  man  as  he 
began  to  square  the  policies  of  the  government  along 
lines  where  human  interest  is  lost  sight  of  as  corpo- 
rate interest  intervenes — and  so  they  go. 

Four  years  ago,  with  a  united  Republican  party, 
the  Taft  administration  went  into  office  weak,  vaccil- 
ating  and  blundering  on  the  Negro,  i.e.,  national  prob- 
lem. Its  last  fatal  blunder  and  crowning  act  of  racial 
injustice  was  allowing  itself  to  be  made  the  tool  of  a 
gang  of  scoundrels  not  to  prosecute,  but  persecute, 
Jack  Johnson,  the  world's  fistic  champion,  charging 
him  with  crimes  of  which  there  is  not  a  white  man 
who  ever  made  money  out  of  the  prize  fighter's  ring, 
but  what  they  did  not  engage  in  the  same ;  they  have 
all  finally  opened  up  a  saloon  and  engaged  in  the  so- 
called  "White  Slave"  traffic,  and  no  one  has  ever 
raised  a  howl  until  it  was  found  impossible  to  bring 
forward  a  "White  Hope"  to  beat  the  "nigger."  The 
poor  old  Republican  party — it  is  dead.  Even  as  the 
Panama  Canal  will  prove  the  nation's  undoing.  As 
for  myself,  I  set  at  defiance  any  law  of  man  which 
intervenes  between  me  and  the  enjoyment  of  any 


Foreword  ix 

right  not  denied  to  other  men.    I  teach  my  boy  the 
same. 

The  States  of  Pennsylvania  and  New  Jersey  have, 
through  their  legislatures  made  appropriations  in  aid 
of  the  Semi-Centennial  Emancipation  Proclamation 
Celebration  in  September,  1913.  This,  and  all  simi- 
lar celebrations  for  the  years  yet  to  come,  should 
appeal  not  alone  to  the  Negroes,  but  to  all  the  world, 
and  especially  to  all  Americans.  Emancipation  not 
only  freed  the  Negro  from  physical  bondage,  but  it 
in  great  measure  freed  the  white  race  from  industrial 
slavery  and  conditions  worse;  an  intellectual,  moral 
and  social  thraldom,  which  at  once  prevented  a  full 
development  of  all  the  white  race  along  lines  of  in- 
tellectual, moral  and  social  progress.  The  after  effects 
of  black  slavery  was  emphasized  by  John  Temple 
Graves  nineteen  years  ago  thus:  "Let  me  assume 
without  argument,  that  no  thinking  man  of  to-day 
questions  the  existence  of  a  race  problem — a  vital 
and  present  and  pressing  problem,  which  challenges 
at  once  the  humanity,  the  pride,  the  integrity  and 
safety  of  the  Republic.  It  is  the  bar  to  fraternity 
and  to  the  unity  of  national  sentiment.  It  is  the  ob- 
struction in  the  way  of  foreign  immigration  and  capi- 
tal. It  throttles  liberty  of  sentiment  and  suffrage 
in  the  South.  It  poisons  the  Southern  ballot.  It  de- 
moralizes justice  in  the  Southern  courts.  It  steadily 
threatens  the  peace  and  safety  of  society.  It  impedes 
the  progress  and  full  development  of  a  race."  On 
the  first  Sunday  in  this  January,  1913,  Dr.  Stephen 
S.  Wise,  Rabbi  of  the  Free  Synagogue,  New  York 
City,  speaking  from  his  pulpit  on  "Abolition  and  Fifty 
Years  After,"  said: 

"Emancipation  came  as  a  war  measure,  and  rightly 
so — a  measure  of  war  upon  slavery.  Pity  did  not 
free  the  Negro,  but  war  did.  Pity  and  charity  will 
not  solve  the  Negro  problem  of  to-day.  It  is  upon 


x  Foreword 

the  higher  grounds  of  justice  and  democracy  that 
the  question  must  be  met.  We  face  to-day,  as  a  na- 
tion, not  a  negro  question,  but  the  American  ques- 
tion. It  is  and  always  has  been  the  test  touchstone 
of  American  life,  testing  the  very  foundations  of  the 
Republic.  If  we  fail  here  we  fail  everywhere.  The 
question  is  not  one  of  racial  equality,  but  of  social 
justice,  of  true  democracy,  of  genuine  Americanism." 

For  these  reasons — and  they  are  vital,  I  look  for- 
ward to  the  future,  when  the  celebration  of  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation  will  not  be  considered 
wholly  a  Negro  affair,  but  an  affair  of  the  nation  and 
of  the  world. 

Twenty  years  ago  Frederick  Douglass,  taking  for 
his  subject  "Lessons  of  the  Hour"  among  other 
things,  said:  "There  is  one  thing,  however,  in  which 
I  think  we  must  all  agree  at  the  start.  It  is  that 
this  so-called,  but  miscalled,  Negro  problem  is  one  of 
the  most  important  and  urgent  subjects  that  can  now 
engage  public  attention.  Its  solution  is,  and  ought  to 
be,  the  serious  business  of  the  best  American  wisdom 
and  statesmanship.  For  it  involves  the  honor  or  dis- 
honor, the  glory  or  shame,  the  happiness  or 
misery,  of  the  whole  American  people.  It  not 
only  touches  the  good  name  and  fame  of  the 
Republic,  but  its  highest  moral  welfare  and  its  per- 
manent safety.  The  evil  with  which  it  confronts  us 
is  coupled  with  a  peril  at  once  great  and  increasing, 
and  one  which  should  be  removed,  if  it  can  be,  with- 
out delay."  "But  even  the  Southern  whites  have  an 
interest  in  this  question.  Woe  to  the  South  when  it 
no  longer  has  the  strong  arm  of  the  Negro  to  till  its 
soil,"  and  "woe  to  the  nation  when  it  shall  employ  the 
sword  to  drive  the  Negro  from  his  native  land."  Such 
a  crime  against  justice,  such  a  crime  against  grati- 
tude, should  it  ever  be  attempted,  would  certainly 
bring  a  national  punishment  which  would  cause  the 


Foreword  xi 

earth  to  shudder.  It  would  bring  a  stain  upon  the 
nation's  honor  like  the  blood  on  Lady  Macbeth's 
hand.  The  waters  of  all  the  oceans  would  not  suffice 
to  wash  out  the  infamy.  But  the  nation  will  commit 
no  such  crime.  But  in  regard  to  this  point  of  our 
future,  my  mind  is  easy.  We  are  here  and  here  to 
stay.  It  is  well  for  us  and  well  for  the  American 
people  to  rest  upon  this  as  final."  "Could  I  be  heard 
by  this  great  nation,  I  would  call  to  mind  the  sublime 
and  glorious  truths  with  which  at  its  birth,  it  saluted 
and  startled  a  listening  world.  Its  voice,  then,  was 
as  the  trump  of  an  archangel,  summoning  hoary 
forms  of  oppression  and  time-honored  tyranny,  to 
judgment. 

Crowned  heads  heard  it  and  shrieked.  Toiling 
millions  heard  it  and  clapped  their  hands  for  joy.  It 
announced  the  advent  of  a  nation,  based  upon  human 
brotherhood  and  the  self-evident  truths  of  liberty  and 
equality.  Its  mission  was  the  redemption  of  the 
world  from  the  bondage  of  ages.  Apply  these  sub- 
lime and  glorious  truths  to  the  situation  now  be- 
fore you.  Put  away  your  race  prejudice.  Banish 
the  idea  that  one  class  must  rule  over  another.  Rec- 
ognize the  fact  that  the  rights  of  the  humblest  citi- 
zens are  as  worthy  of  protection  as  those  of  the  high- 
est, and  your  problem  will  be  solved;  and  whatever 
may  be  in  store  for  you  in  the  future,  whether 
prosperity  or  adversity ;  whether  you  have  foes  with- 
out or  foes  within,  whether  there  shall  be  peace  or 
war,  based  upon  the  eternal  principles  of  truth,  jus- 
tice and  humanity,  with  no  class  having  cause  for 
complaint  or  grievance,  your  Republic  will  stand  and 
flourish  forever."  I  look  forward  to  the  day  when 
men  in  the  positions  of  Samuel  Gompers,  John 
Mitchell,  Wm.  Morrison,  Eugene  V.  Debbs,  John 
Burns  of  England,  and  others  who  lead  the  host  of 
labor  will  join  with  their  millions  of  followers  in 


xii  Foreword 

celebrating  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  in  em- 
phasis that  America  is  in  truth  and  not  in  theory  the 
"'Land  of  the  free  and  the  home  of  the  brave,"  for 
well  has  Terrance  V.  Powderly  said:  "Labor  cannot 
solve  its  problems  without  considering  the  black 
man  a  brother  and  a  factor.  Their  interest  indus- 
trially are  the  same."  The  celebration  at  Philadelphia, 
the  home  of  "Liberty  Bell"  and  the  house  of  Betsey 
Ross)  this  coming  September  should  not  be  the  Ne- 
groes' affair  only,  but  it  is  the  white  man's  affair 
equally,  if  not  more  so,  and  should  be  an  occasion 
and  an  opportunity  for  American  patriotism  and 
sublime  oratory  by  white  and  black  champions  of 
human  liberty. 


INTRODUCTION. 

In  this,  my  crowning  effort,  my  mission  is  one  of 
peace ;  yet  I  shall  wield  a  sword  with  edge  so  keen  as 
to  cut  clean  between  the  marrow  and  the  bone. 

In  this  effort  effect  shall  follow  cause — pain  may 
be  inflicted,  but  ease  will  come  to  an  aching  world. 
Yea,  joy  shall  supplant  sorrow,  and  the  bowed  head 
shall  be  lifted  in  praise  to  the  Geni  of  Good  to  all  the 
World. 

The  hydra-head  of  hate,  malice,  envy,  jealousy, 
prejudice  and  proscription,  shall  be  exposed  and 
crushed,  and  all  mankind  made  to  feel  and  proclaim 
that:  "Children  are  we  all  of  one  Great  Father;  in 
whatever  clime  his  providence  hath  cast  the  seed  of 
life,  He,  the  all-seeing  Father,  regards  nations,  hues, 
and  dialects  alike/'  that  "Laws  of  changeless  justice 
binds  oppressor  with  oppressed,  and  close  as  sin  and 
suffering  joined  we  march  to  fate  abreast,"  That 
"Fleecy  locks  and  black  complexions  cannot  forfeit 
nature's  claims,  that  skins  may  differ  but  affection 
dwells  in  white  and  black  the  same." 

Irrefutably  I  affirm  that  this  work  shall  be  done. 

Where  I  leave  off  another  will  begin.  What  I 
have  begun  another  will  finish." 

"So  BE  IT." 

The  principles  actuating  this  book  are  preor- 
dained and  inspired,  hence  like  the  rubber  ball,  their 
elastic  properties  are  such  that  the  harder  you  throw 
them  down  the  higher  will  they  bound. 

Attempt  to  combat  them,  and  you  and  your  issue 
will  be  buried  in  anathmatic  oblivion.  Espouse  the 
cause  of  right  and  justice,  and  through  ignominy  and 


xiv  Introduction 


seeming  defeat  your  name  will  shine  on  through  the 
darkness  of  conflict.  Yea,  your  personality  will  stride 
down  the  ages,  on  up  throughout  eternity,  shedding 
a  glorious  effulgence;  illumining  the  path  of  your 
posterity  even  as  the  Christ,  as  John  Brown,  the  mar- 
tyr; as  Wm.  Wilberforce,  Robert  Emmet,  Daniel 
O'Connel;  as  the  immortal  Lincoln,  Grant  Lovejoy, 
Stephens,  Jas.  B.  Julian,  Lucretia  Mott,  Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe,  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  Wendell  Phil- 
lips, William  Lloyd  Garrison,  Frederick  Douglass, 
Tousant  LeOverture,  Grover  Cleveland,  Antonia 
Maseo,  Andrew  Carnegie,  Miss  Anna  P.  Jeanes,  Gen- 
erals O.  O.  Howard,  Clinton  B.  Fisk  and  Benj.  F. 
Butler,  Sarah  Mapps  Douglass,  Carolina  Phelps 
Stokes,  Hannah  Pierce  Cox,  John  Cox,  Mrs.  Thomas 
Garrett,  Thomas  Garrett,  Elijah  Pennypacker,  Dr. 
Fussell,  Wm.  Still,  Chas.  Sumner,  Carl  Schurz,  Jus- 
tice Harlan,  Mother;  Cathern  Drexal,  George  Pea- 
body,  John  Fox  Slater,  Daniel  Hand,  Dr.  Booker  T. 
Washington,  Thomas  B.  Reed,  James  G.  Blaine, ; 
Senators  Joseph  Benson,  Foraker  and  Henry  W. 
Blair,  Mr.  Shaw,  George  L.  Stearns,  Thaddeus  Stev- 
ens, Capt.  John  Edwin  Cook,  W.  F.  S.  Cook,  and  the 
militant  host  of  other  patriots,  philanthropists  and 
statesmen,  the  long  roll  of  whom  I  am  pained  be- 
cause space  will  not  permit  to  enroll  them  here — il- 
lustrious men  and  women  distinguished  from  the 
demagogue,  the  public  sycophant  and  blatant  mounte- 
bank. 

In  the  preparation  of  this  book  a  work  is  fore- 
shadowed, the  stupendousness  of  which  I  fully  real- 
ize, but  am  equally  conscious  that  one  with  Right- 
GODusness  is  a  power  irresistible,  while  many  with- 
out righteousness  is  as  nothing. 

In  this  my  fight  is  Universal — hence,  questions 
International,  Industrial,  Sociological,  Political  and 
Economical  I  intend  to  discuss  with  all  the  force  p| 


Introduction  XV5 


unrestrained  logic  and  humane  reasoning  in  meta- 
phor inspired  and  emphasized  by  centuries  of  prepar- 
edness. 

In  this  and  its  continuance  to  follow  the  voice 
from  the  Tomb  shall  speak. 

The  world  shall  hear  the  spoken  defiance  of  a  soul 
to  the  oppressor.  All  demagogic  scoundrels  shall  be 
made  to  tremble  at  the  awakening  of  long  shackled 
millions. 

The  elements,  both  animate  and  inanimate,  shall 
stand  aghast  at  the  new  conflict  waged,  and  all  celes- 
tial and  terrestrial  beings  shall  sound  the  vault  of 
creation  with  praise  for  the  victory  of  righteousness 
against  injustice  throughout  the  Universe. 

CAESAR  ANDREW  AUGUSTUS  P.  TAYLOR. 
December,  1909, 


THE    CONFLICT 

AND 

COMMINGLING  OF  THE  RACES 

NOT  HEATHENS, 
WHAT  SHOULD  YOU  EXPECT  OF  THEM? 


Sunday,  February  23rd,  1902,  there  appeared  in 
the  "New  York  American  and  Journal"  a  full  page 
write-up  captioned,  "What  Happened  to  Pretty  Miss 
Jewell  Who  Married  King  Lobengula  the  Savage." 
Said  "write-up"  was  profusely  illustrated,  showing 
purported  incidents  in  the  married  life  of  this  couple 
after  the  nuptials  at  the  altar.  The  various  illustra- 
tions were  underprinted :  First,  "The  Wedding;" 
second,  "Lobengula  Feasts  on  the  Floor;"  third, 
"Throws  Assegais  at  His  Wife;"  fourth,  "At  Last 
Beats  Her  with  a  Huge  Knobkerry ;"  fifth,  the  cen- 
tral illustration  shows  what  pretends  to  be  King 
Lobengula  the  savage  in  raiment  with  assegais  in 
hand  emerging  from  a  tangled  jungle  with  vision 
bent  upon  Miss  Jewell,  who  is  pictured  full  length 
as  a  modern  English  beauty,  looking  the  perfection 
of  modesty,  innocence  and  virtue,  with  back  turned, 
seemingly  unaware  of  her  approaching  captor.  Com- 
pleting the  illustrations,  there  is  in  the  lower  left 
hand  corner  of  the  page  a  group  of  five  photos  of 
half  nude,  thick  lipped,  kerchief  head  covered  black 
savage  looking  persons  with  huge  rings  hanging  in 

I 


Cije    Conflict 


their  ears.  This  photo  group  is  underprinted,  "A 
Few  of  King  Lobengula's  Hundred  Wives  in 
Africa."  The  writer  of  this  so  much  per  line  paid 
for  malignant  travesty  on  a  race  of  people,  prefaces 
or  introduces  his  story  thus: 

"No  occurrence  excited  more  curiosity  in  England 
or  more  disgust  among  right  minded  people  than  the 
marriage  of  Miss  Jewell,  a  pretty  English  girl,  with 
the  savage  King  Lobengula,  the  dethroned  monarch 
of  Matabeleland,  in  South  Africa.  This  marriage 
has  ended  in  misery,  as  might  have  been  expected. 
The  young  wife  has  brought  suit  for  divorce  in 
London  against  her  royal  savage.  She  makes  as- 
tonishing allegations  of  cruelty  and  misconduct.  Al- 
though Lobengula  was  married  in  a  frock  coat  and 
silk  hat,  he  relapsed  immediately  afterwards  into 
utter  savagery.  Dressed  only  in  a  few  feathers,  he 
feasted  on  raw  meat  on  the  floor.  He  bit  his  wife, 
threw  assegais  at  her  and  beat  her  with  a  knob- 
kerry." 

Lobengula  was  driven  in  1893  from  his  king- 
dom after  getting  into  a  war  with  the  English  settlers 
in  Rhodesia. 

Miss  Jewell,  whose  father  was  a  mining  magnate, 
first  met  him  at  Bloemfontein,  in  the  Orange  Free 
State.  In  1899  ne  came  to  London  as  part  of  a 
show  called  "Savage  South  Africa."  They  were  then 
married.  In  the  body  of  the  story  the  writer  goes 
on  to  say:  "This  is  the  climax  to  one  of  the  most 
astonishing  and  painful  stories  of  modern  life.  Miss 
Jewell  was  the  daughter  of  an  English  mine  owner, 
who  had  large  interests  in  Mexico  and  South  Africa. 
She  was  not  only  handsome,  but  cultivated  and 
seemingly  refined.  In  spite  of  all  protest  she  mar- 
ried him.  His  face  is  quite  good  looking  for  a 
Negro,  and  one  would  hardly  think  it  concealed  so 

2 


CJje    Conflict 


much  savagery.  The  present  divorce  case  reveals 
that  Lobengula  behaved  in  the  worst  possible  way 
that  could  be  expected  of  a  savage  king.  Immedi- 
ately after  their  marriage,  King  Lobengula  began 
to  show  his  true  colors.  Grown  tired  of  biting  and 
beating  his  wife,  he  used  to  amuse  himself  by  throw- 
ing assegais  at  her.  When  he  was  in  bad  temper 
he  would  run  a  spear  through  her  shoulder  or  some 
other  place." 

Thus  with  Billingsgate  vituperation  and  high  col- 
ored misrepresentation  the  writer  with  his  poison 
brewing  imagination  goes  on  caricaturing  and  hold- 
ing up  to  ridicule  King  Lobengula,  and  ascribing  to 
him  and  his  South  African  subjects  all  manner  of 
barbaric  atrocities.  He  tells  of  some  peculiar  insti- 
tution of  Matabeleland  known  as  the  Milmo,  a  high 
priest  believed  by  the  natives  to  be  immortal  and 
who  could  not  possibly  be  killed,  and  that  finally  one, 
Major  F.  R.  Burnham,  an  American  who  afterwards 
served  with  Lord  Roberts  in  the  Boer  War,  crawled 
on  his  hands  and  knees  into  the  cave  of  the  Milmo 
and  shot  him  as  if  he  were  a  trapped  animal,  thus 
ending  his  influence  over  the  Matabeles,  and,  inci- 
dentally paving  the  way  for  the  successful  over- 
throw of  Lobengula's  power  and  his  capture  by  the 
English. 

He  states  when  Miss  Jewell  brought  her  suit  for 
divorce  in  London  from  Lobengula,  that  Sir  Fran- 
cis Jeune,  the  Divorce  Court  Judge,  on  hearing  her 
story,  asked  Queen  Lobengula,  "Isn't  this  rather 
what  you  might  have  expected?"  "I  don't  know 
what  you  mean,"  replied  the  Queen,  indignantly. 
"You  knew  he  was  a  savage,  didn't  you?"  asked 
the  Judge.  "I  loved  him,"  said  the  petitioner,  pa- 
thetically. 

For  the  purpose  of  this  book  it  is  not  necessary 
3 


C6e    Conflict 

that  I  shall  further  dignify  the  writer  of  this  by 
quoting  his  scurrilous  attack  upon  African  nobility 
(for  Lobengula  is  a  king  of  royal  line  with  all 
kingly  prerogatives,  despite  certain  white  persons 
imbued  with  American  race  prejudice  who  try  to 
influence  the  world  against  everything  pertaining  to 
Negro  blood,  brain  and  character) .  My  purpose  is 
to  show  the  bias  of  the  average  newspapers  and 
other  publications  conducted  by  white  men  in  the 
United  States  of  America  when  purveying  news  or 
treating  upon  any  subject  where  the  Negro  race  is 
concerned.  Certain  white  publishers  make  a  bid 
for  any  write-up  which  caricatures  the  Negro  race, 
or  distorts,  twists,  misrepresents,  misquotes  or  mag- 
nifies into  grotesqueness  the  least  happening  or  inci- 
dent concerning  this  people — and  at  times  it  appears 
that  there  is  a  concerted  movement  among  a  scoun- 
drelly pessimistic  class  of  news  writers  to  purvey 
through  public  print  an  avalanche  of  imaginary  filth 
and  mud  about  Negroes  and  other  peoples  of  color. 
Hence,  many  lies  have  been  written  as  to  Chinese  rat 
eating,  the  Yellow  peril,  the  cocky  Jap  and  rice  eat- 
ers of  Nippon,  the  deceptive  and  begging  Hindoo, 
the  big  burly  black  brutes — yea,  about  the  unwashed, 
uncivilized,  bloodthirsty  heathens  in  all  the  world, 
and,  lately,  in  a  current  magazine,  an  American 
white  writer  has  an  article  in  which  she  awakes 
from  a  new  nightmare  and  conjures  up  another 
ghost,  "The  Mulatto  Negro,  the  Yellow  Peril  of 
the  North." 

Referring  to  the  so-called  "Yellow  Peril"  and  the 
"Negro  Peril"  of  the  South,  she  writes:  "Few  have 
seemed  to  realize  that  to  the  Caucasian  dwellers  in 
the  Northern  half  of  this  country  there  is  a  deeper 
and  graver  racial  menace  than  either  of  these  two, 

4 


Cfce   conflict 


in  that  it  involves  the  most  horrible  possibilities  of 
both." 

The  writer  then  quotes  President  Elliot  of  Har- 
vard University  in  a  speech  before  the  Lincoln  Din- 
ner Club  delivered  some  months  before  her  writing: 
"Northern  opinion  and  Southern  opinion  are  identi- 
cal with  regard  to  shielding  the  two  races  from  ad- 
mixture one  with  the  other.  We  frankly  recognize 
that  the  feeling  of  Northern  whites  against  personal 
contact  with  the  Negro  is  even  stronger  than  that  of 
Southern  whites."  Then  she  proceeds  forthwith  to 
take  issue  with  his  declaration,  and  seeking  to  sus- 
tain her  contention,  cites  Maine  and  Delaware,  Ore- 
gon, Idaho,  Nebraska,  and  Indiana  as  the  only 
Northeastern  and  Northwestern  States  in  which 
marriage  between  whites  and  blacks  is  prohibited 
by  statutory  law.  Then  she  refers  to  statistical 
tables  on  page  16  of  Census  Bulletin  No.  8,  as  giv- 
ing the  percentage  of  mulattoes  in  total  Negro  popu- 
lation for  the  various  States  and  groups  of  States 
in  1890,  1870,  1860  and  1850,  and  asserts  that: 
"The  figures  warrant  the  belief  that  between  one- 
ninth  and  one-sixth  of  the  negro  population  of  con- 
tinental United  States  have  been  regarded  by  four 
groups  of  enumerators  as  bearing  evidences  of  an 
admixture  of  white  blood.  The  figures  also  indicate 
that  this  admixture  was  found  by  the  enumerators 
to  be  most  prevalent  in  sections  where  the  population 
cf  negroes  to  whites  is  smallest,  and  least  prevalent 
where  the  proportion  is  largest." 

She  finds  that  Maine,  whose  Negro  population  in 
1890  was  one-fifth  of  one  per  cent,  of  the  total, 
shows  59.4  of  the  Negroes  to  be  mulattoes.  Right 
here  let  me  remark  for  obvious  reasons  that  Maine 
is  one  of  the  States  she  has  already  cited  where  mar- 

5 


Cjje    Conflict 


riage  between  races  is  by  law  prohibited — by  all 
means  let  us  not  lose  sight  of  Maine. 

She  continues:  "Allowing  for  all  possible  errors 
and  inaccuracies  in  this  mongrel  enumeration,  we 
cannot  escape  the  plain  statistical  fact,  that  as  one 
passes  from  the  great  cotton  growing  States  between 
South  Carolina  and  Texas  toward  the  North  there 
is  a  marked  increase  of  racial  fusion.  The  pre- 
sumption that  this  is  due  solely  or  chiefly  to  immi- 
gration from  the  South  is  precluded  by  noting  the 
same  ratio  between  the  figures  for  the  two  sections 
in  1850-60,  when  the  only  immigrants  of  this  color 
from  the  South  were  the  runaway  slaves.  A  com- 
parison of  Northern  and  Southern  cities  for  the 
earlier  periods  tells  the  same  story." 

Thus  far  with  all  her  array  of  figures  she  proves 
nothing  as  refers  to  the  States  and  cities  North 
compared  with  the  same  South  as  to  the  percentage 
of  mulattoes  to  the  whole  Negro  population  in  any 
city  or  State  North  or  South  excepting  it  be  in 
Maine,  and,  remember,  that  Maine  is  one  of  the 
Northern  States  in  which,  like  at  the  South,  mar- 
riage between  the  races  is  prohibited,  and  yet  there 
in  1890  the  Negro  population  was  one-fifth  of  one 
per  cent,  of  the  total,  and  yet  57.4  of  these  Negroes 
were  mulattoes.  Again,  I  say,  note  this.  But,  she 
continues:  "If  we  hold  that  the  only  sin  in  the  com- 
mingling of  these  is  the  sin  of  illegality,  perhaps  the 
chief  onus  of  miscegenation  still  rests  upon  the 
South;  but  if  it  be  conceded  that  any  such  amalga- 
mation is  in  itself  a  crime,  the  South  stands  ap- 
proved as  the  champion  of  Anglo-Saxon  purity,  not 
only  for  exhibiting  the  smallest  percentage  of  ad- 
mixture in  the  midst  of  the  greatest  opportunity  for 
it,  but  also  for  entering  her  protest  uniformly 
against  it  on  her  statute  books.  In  this  view  of  it 

6 


Cfje    Conflict 


also  it  seems  a  poor  defence  to  say  that  the  strong 
Caucasian  instinct  of  the  North  is  sufficient  protec- 
tion against  miscegenation,  and  that  it  is  useless  to 
legislate  against  an  evil  which  does  not  exist.  Un- 
less the  census  statistics  lie,  the  evil  does  exist,  and 
in  much  greater  proportion  than  in  the  South." 

Thus,  of  the  nine  sections  into  which  her  labored 
article  is  divided  she  concludes  the  first,  and  proves 
nothing,  for  she  does  not  prove  that  these  growing 
additions  to  her  "Mulatto  Peril"  ( ?)  were  not  begot- 
ten at  the  South,  though  the  census  enumerators  may 
have  found  their  ratio  to  the  whole  Negro  population 
greatest  in  the  states  and  cities  North  as  compared 
with  the  states  and  cities  South,  and  to  her  asser- 
tion that  "the  greatest  opportunity  for  miscegenation 
exists  at  the  South,"  all  must  agree  with  her  that  it 
does  for  the  white  libertine  and  despoiler  of  Negro 
female  virtue,  but  it  does  not  exist  for  a  Negro  man, 
because  that  very  "protest  uniformly  against  it  on 
the  South's  statute  books  is  vengefully  exerted 
against  the  Negro  man  where  a  white  woman  is  con- 
cerned excepting  when  the  mob  gets  on  the  job  in  ad- 
vance. Then  there  is  nothing  for  this  aforesaid  pro- 
testing uniform  statute  to  do  but  contemplate  the  fin- 
ished work  of  the  South's  "best  citizens."  Even  as 
Southern  writers  and  preachers  in  the  past  sought 
to  twist  the  Bible  into  indorsing  their  despicable 
traffic  in  human  flesh  and  blood,  this  writer  now  as- 
serts the  census  statistics  lie  "if  they  do  not  prove 
that  miscegenation  is  greater  at  the  North  than  at  the 
South,  while  it  is  a  truth  that  there  is  not  now  and 
never  was  as  many  white  fathers  of  illegitimate 
children  by  Negro  women  at  the  North  as  there  has 
been  and  is  now  at  the  South.  In  the  attitude  of  that 
class  of  white  men  who  despoil  the  Indian  and  the 

7 


€  f)  e    Conflict 


Negro  is  seen  the  truth  that  they  hate  with  fear  most 
those  whom  they  have  wronged  most. 

An  incident  I  know  of  in  a  southern  city  was  a 
Negro  girl  in  the  employment  of  a  white  family  to 
whom  her  parents  had  belonged  in  slavery.  The 
girl's  name  was  Maggie.  She  one  day  brought  to  her 
work  with  her  an  infant  very  light  of  complexion. 
The  white  mistress  and  daughters  of  the  family  gath- 
ered around  and  made  much  over  the  cooing  babe, 
and  asked  Maggie  who  was  its  father.  Maggie, 
thinking  no  harm,  not  realizing  what  would  be  the 
final  consequence,  replied:  "Mr.  Wilbur  is  its  father." 
Now,  Wilbur  was  the  son  of  that  mistress  and  the 
brother  of  those  fair  Anglo-Saxon,  blue-blooded, 
rosy  cheeked,  blue-eyed,  flaxen-haired  daughters  of 
Southern  aristocracy.  They  all  stood  aghast  and  in 
chorus  exclaimed:  "Oh,  Maggie!",  and  yet  they 
smiled  sweetly  upon  the  innocent  babe  in  its  black 
mother's  arms.  The  subject  was  dismissed;  poor 
Maggie  thought  no  more  about  it.  But  one  dark, 
stormy,  muddy  night,  when  lightning  was  flashing 
and  thunder  roaring  aloud,  a  knock  came  upon  the 
little  cabin  door  down  the  lane  where  Maggie  lived 
with  her  poor  decrepit  old  mother  and  father.  Hear- 
ing the  knock  the  old  mother  hobbled  to  the  door, 
lifted  the  bolt  and  poked  her  head  out  of  the  door 
ajar.  With  a  sickening  thud  and  crashing  bones  the 
old  lady  fell  to  the  floor — a  brick  bat  intended  for 
Maggie  thrown  from  the  darkness  had  mashed  in 
the  old  woman's  face.  Thus  Wilbur,  after  seducing 
the  girl,  attempted  to  murder  her  for  admitting  that 
he  was  the  father  of  her  child.  There  is  not  alone 
this  particular  Wilbur;  there  are  many  others  south 
of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line. 

Hence : 

8 


Cfte    Conflict 


THE  NEGRO  WOMAN  IN  THE  NATION'S 
PROBLEM. 

Much  has  been  written,  much  has  been  spoken,  and 
much  has  been  resolved  for  the  solution  of  the  prob- 
lems which  perplexes  the  Negro  race,  but  the  one 
thing  needful  is  yet  to  be  done  by  the  women  of  the 
race ;  then  will  speedily  come  the  solution.  This  must 
be  admitted  on  every  hand  when  you  consider  first, 
that  the  strength  of  a  race  consists  in  the  virtue  and 
integrity  of  its  women;  second,  the  entire  Negro 
race  is  compromised  and  weakened  by  and  through 
the  attitude  of  certain  white  men  toward  Negro  wom- 
en; hence  the  question?  Why  do  white  men  as 
legislators  at  the  South  enact  Jim  Crow  laws,  inflict- 
ing discriminating  outrages  upon  the  Negro  race ;  de- 
grading both  their  men  and  women,  and  ever  intent 
upon  seeking  clandestine  alliances  under  cover  of 
night  with  the  women?  These  same  white  men  in- 
troduce and  enact  Jim  Crow  laws  in  the  legislatures 
by  day,  and  at  night  they  are  out  in  the  byways  and 
lanes  inquiring  and  looking  for  a  "pretty  yaller  girl". 
Oh,  Heaven!  witness  the  unholy  alliances  of  concu- 
binage by  white  men  with  Negro  mistresses.  It  is 
these  men  that  say  there  are  no  Negro  ladies.  They 
say  it  when  they  cause  to  be  written  over  the  doors 
of  southern  railroad  depot  waiting  rooms — signs 
reading  thus :  "Ladies'  Waiting  Room"  and  "Colored 
Waiting  Room."  Now,  be  it  known  that  the  "col- 
ored waiting  room"  indicates  the  waiting  room  set 
apart  for  all  Negroes,  where  cats,  dogs,  white  men 
— drunken,  cigar  smoking,  tobacco  using  white  men — 
and  every  other  vile  abomination  is  privileged  to  en- 
ter and  tarry.  This,  "The  Colored  Waiting  Room," 
while  the  "Ladies'  Waiting  Room"  is  sacred  to  white 
men  and  white  women  only — be  the  white  women 

9 


Cbe   Conflict 


ever  so  vile  in  character  and  person,  the  "Ladies' 
Waiting  Room"  is  free  to  them,  while  the  colored 
woman,  no  matter  how  refined  and  virtuous,  is  not 
allowed  to  enter  it. 

Thus,  it  is  not  the  white  woman,  but  the  white 
men  who  declare  that  there  are  no  Negro  ladies.  Oh ! 
monstrosity  of  wickedness  done  by  the  son  of  a  gun 
who  is  eternally  and  forever  looking  for  "a  pretty 
yaller  gal."  How  long,  oh,  how  long,  will  colored 
women  quietly  tolerate  these  beastly  proceedings, 
which  pins  upon  them  the  scarlet  letter;  and  weak- 
ening the  men  of  their  race?  How,  oh,  how  long, 
will  noble  white  women  allow  these  proceedings  to 
continue,  which  deprive  their  marriagable  daughters 
of  honorable  husbands — in  that  certain  white  men 
prefer  Negro  mistresses?  Negro  women  have  for 
many  years  worn  the  scarlet  letter,  and  by  their 
silence,  yea — angel-like  silence — he  who  should  have 
stood  in  the  criminal  dock  has  posed  in  society  as 
a  paragon  of  virtue,  but  now,  even  as  Hester  Prynne 
and  little  Pearl  dramatically  set  forth  in  Nathaniel 
Hawthorn's  "Scarlet  Letter,"  the  other  and  more 
guilty  culprit  must  come  up  on  the  scaffold. 

White  men,  if  you  have  any  sense  of  honor,  if  you 
respect  the  wives,  daughters  and  mothers  of  your 
own  race,  be  just,  be  charitable  toward  the  offspring 
of  your  unholy  lust  and  clandestine  alliances.  If  you 
will  not  be  just  and  consistent,  then  "shinny  on  your 
own  side."  It  is  intended  to  inaugurate  a  new  cru- 
sade; yea,  though  the  Heavens  fall,  I  mean  it,  and 
call  upon  Negro  woman  everywhere  to  assist,  for  in 
this  I  see  the  solution  of  the  problem :  Who  else  will 
assist  men  or  women?  Let  me  hear  from  you 
through  some  concerted  action.  Again,  I  quote  the 
article  "The  Mulatto  Negro  a  Yellow  Peril."  Be- 
ginning the  second  section,  she  says : 

10 


C  ft  e  conU iet 

"The  question  naturally  arises,  'If  such  large  per- 
centage of  admixture  stands  against  the  North  with 
few  Negroes,  what  might  it  be  with  more?  And 
more  Negroes  is  the  proposition  which  confronts  the 
North  to-day;  as  an  eminent  and  radical  change  in 
the  South's  industrial  system  may  ultimately  deliver 
into  Northern  hands  both  the  Negro  and  his  problem. 
Every  breeze  from  the  South  blows  tidings  of  this 
change.  Mr.  William  Garrett  Brown  of  Harvard 
University  observed  it  going  forward  through  two 
movements  of  population — exodus  and  immigration: 
'There  is/  he  wrote,  'a  steady  and  widespread  move- 
ment of  Negroes  from  the  countrysides  into  the 
towns,  and  out  of  the  state  into  the  North;  and 
there  is  a  moderate  but  fairly  steady,  and  apparently, 
increasing  inflow  of  whites.  All  over  the  South  com- 
plaint is  heard  that  the  Negro  as  a  laborer,  particu- 
larly as  a  farm  hand,  is  deteriorating.  It  becomes 
harder  and  harder  to  bind  him  to  the  soil  or  to  long 
terms  of  service  in  any  line,  and  he  is  likely  to 
leave  when  the"  farmer  needs  him  most.'  " 

All  over  the  South,  too,  as  it  happens  coincident 
with  this,  there  is  a  great  industrial  renaissance;  a 
full  awakening,  for  the  first  time  in  her  history,  to 
the  complete  realization  of  the  hidden  potentialities 
in  her  vast  and  comparatively  untouched  resources. 
This  industrial  giant  has  risen  from  the  lethargy 
which  two  centuries  of  slavery  imposed,  and  shaking 
off  the  transient  effects  of  defeat  and  misrule,  he 
will  brook  no  obstacle  and  no  delay  in  his  high  re- 
solve to  cause  the  South  to  blossom  with  new  wealth 
and  power.  There  is  work  to  be  done  in  this  vast 
undertaking;  the  Negro  refuses  to  do  it.  Very  well. 
Then  he  must  make  room  for  someone  who  will. 
At  the  convention  of  the  "Southern  Industrial  Par- 
liament" held  in  Washington  last  May,  the  chief  sub- 

II 


C  i)  e    Conflict 


ject  for  discussion  was  the  immigration  of  farm  la- 
bor. The  burden  of  their  cry  was  "the  harvest  is 
plenteous,  the  laborers  are  few.  The  Negro  as  an  in- 
dustrial factor  is  a  failure ;  he  is  not  dependable ;  we 
must  have  something  else." 

"The  vital  point  in  all  this  for  the  North  is  that  the 
South  is  getting  something  else.  Italian  labor  is  no 
longer  an  experiment  in  the  South.  Since  the  first 
colony  at  "Sunny side  Plantation"  in  Arkansas  twelve 
years  ago — at  first  a  failure,  afterward  a  signal  suc- 
cess— these  people  have  proven  more  industrious  and 
more  thrifty  than  the  Negroes.  This  is  illustrated  by 
the  saying  "If  an  Italian  earn  a  dollar  and  a  quarter 
a  day  he  will  live  on  the  twenty-five  cents  and  save 
the  dollar ;  but  if  a  Negro  earn  a  dollar  and  a  quarter, 
he  will  spend  a  dollar  and  a  half."  At  least  one 
great  railroad  system  of  the  South  has  begun  to  use 
Italians  instead  of  Negroes  for  track  work;  but  the 
most  deeply  significant  fact  is  their  appearance  in  the 
sugar,  rice  and  cotton  fields. 

Better  still,  the  Negro's  industrial  short-comings 
are  bringing  to  the  front  the  native  white  rural  and 
mountain  population — "the  South's  great  unutilized 
industrial  reserves."  The  whites  are  gaining  in  the 
shops  and  mills;  they  are  to  be  found  working 
side  by  side  with  the  Negroes  in  the  tobacco  factories, 
and  they  have  a  monopoly  in  the  cotton  mills,  where 
the  Negroes  are  not  found  at  all.  The  silk  mills  near 
Norfolk,  Va.,  employ  girls  exclusively.  "In  parts 
of  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas  whence  the  Negroes 
are  migrating  northward  so  steadily,"  says  an  eye- 
witness, "white  men  are  doing  more  and  more  of 
the  work  that  was  formerly  left  to  Negroes.  Large 
planters  and  landowners  in  those  quarters  now 
make  it  a  rule  to  have  neither  Negro  tenants  nor  Ne- 
gro laborers,  aiming  specially  against  sudden  depar- 

12 


Cibe    Conflict 


tures.  Once  free  of  their  long  dependence  on  the 
African,  these  people  will  hardly  go  back  to  it  of  their 
own  accord." 

Aiming  at  greater  efficiency  for  this  white  labor 
is  the  movement  recently  inaugurated  in  Washing- 
ton entitled,  "The  Southern  Industrial  Education 
League"  for  the  establishment  of  more  and  better 
training  schools  in  the  South  for  the  poor  white 
children.  Mr.  Brown  deposes  in  this  connection: 
"The  white  man  whom  the  Negro  has  to  fear  is  no 
longer  the  man  who  would  force  him  to  work,  it  is 
the  white  man  who  would  take  his  work  away  from 
him.  The  immediate  danger  to  the  Negro  is  from 
rivalry  rather  than  oppression." 

Thus  far  the  writer  argues  entertainingly,  but  she 
does  not  wipe  out  the  fact  that  for  two  hundred  and 
forty-seven  years  the  Negroes  poured  out  their  toil, 
their  sweat  and  their  blood,  as  a  foundation  upon 
which  the  greatness  of  not  alone  the  South  but  the 
Union  is  erected.  For  two  hundred  and  forty-seven 
years  they  toiled  as  instruments  of  utilization  in  the 
hands  of  Anglo-Saxons  developing  this  country  and 
producing  its  ponderous  wealth,  and  after  a  fearful 
conflict  of  blood  and  carnage  and  a  stupendous  price 
in  lives  and  material  wealth,  the  Negro's  freedom  re- 
sulted. From  the  surrender  at  Appomattox  down  to 
now,  the  white  men  of  the  South  have  striven  by 
every  device  to  defeat  the  benefits  of  emancipation. 
Yea,  within  the  breast  of  many  a  one  who  cannot 
bear  to  see  the  hated  nigger  prospering,  this  form  of 
prayer  may  be: 

"Oh,  Lord!  do  keep  the  nigger  back, 

Let  darkness  be  his  shroud. 
He  is  tripping  close  upon  our  track, 
He  is  ranting  long  and  loud. 
13 


Cfce   Conflict 


We  have  sent  some  educated  farmers  to  legis- 
lative halls 
To  make  some  laws  that  when  enforced  would 

make  the  nigger  fall. 
We  have  stolen  his  vote,  we  have  clipped  his 

rights, 
But  he  rises  over  all." 

Of  all  the  causes  which  conspire  to  blind  the  judg- 
ment and  mislead  the  mind  it  is  selfishness  and  pre- 
judice, the  never  failing  vice  of  fools.  Surely  self- 
interest  attained  cannot  comprehend  the  magnitude 
of  the  wrongs  inflicted  upon  the  many.  Zealous  in 
endeavor  to  deal  injustice  dwarfs  one's  conception 
of  what  constitutes  justice.  Hence,  the  prejudiced 
nigger-hating  whites  cannot  be  fair  judges  or  sound 
thinkers  to  be  trusted.  Whatever  they  write,  say  or 
do  is  to  be  viewed,  and  rightly  so,  with  suspicion 
and  caution.  The  world  and  the  ages  will  so  rate 
them  throughout  all  time. 

Here  I  shall  let  the  tomb  speak  in  the  person  of 
Frederick  Douglass,  who  in  an  able  contribution  en- 
titled "Lessons  of  the  Hour,"  appearing  in  July, 
1894,  in  the  "A.  M.  E.  Review,"  he  spoke  thus : 

"The  righteous  judgment  of  mankind  will  say,  if 
the  American  people  could  endure  the  Negro's  pres- 
ence while  a  slave  they  certainly  can  and  ought  to 
endure  his  presence  as  a  free  man.  If  they  could 
tolerate  him  when  he  was  a  heathen,  they  might  bear 
with  him  now  that  he  is  a  Christian.  If  they  could 
bear  with  him  when  ignorant  and  degraded,  they 
should  bear  with  him  now  that  he  is  a  gentleman 
and  a  scholar.  But  even  the  Southern  whites  have 
an  interest  in  the  question.  Woe  to  the  South  when 
it  no  longer  has  the  strong  arm  of  the  Negro  to  till 
its  soil,  and  woe  to  the  nation  when  it  shall  employ 

14 


C  i)  e    Conflict 


the  sword  to  drive  the  Negro  from  his  native  land. 

"Such  a  crime  against  justice,  such  a  crime  against 
gratitude,  should  it  ever  be  attempted,  would  cer- 
tainly bring  a  national  punishment  which  would  cause 
the  earth  to  shudder.  It  would  bring  a  stain  upon 
the  nation's  honor  like  the  blood  on  Lady  Macbeth's 
hand.  The  waters  of  all  the  oceans  would  not  suf- 
fice to  wash  out  the  infamy.  But  the  nation  will  com- 
mit no  such  crime.  But  in  regard  to  this  point  of 
our  future,  my  mind  is  easy.  We  are  here  and  here 
to  stay.  It  is  well  for  us,  and  well  for  American 
people,  to  rest  upon  this  as  final.  Another  mode  of 
impeaching  the  wisdom  of  emancipation,  and  the  one 
which  seems  to  give  special  pleasure  to  our  enemies, 
is,  as  they  say,  that  the  condition  of  the  colored  peo- 
ple of  the  South  has  been  made  worse  by  emancipa- 
tion. The  champions  of  this  idea  are  the  men  who 
glory  in  the  good  old  times,  when  the  slaves  were 
under  the  lash  and  were  bought  and  sold  in  the  mar- 
ket with  horses,  sheep  and  swine.  It  is  another  way 
of  saying  that  slavery  is  better  than  freedom ;  that 
darkness  is  better  than  light,  and  that  wrong  is 
better  than  right;  that  hell  is  better  than  heaven. 
It  is  the  American  method  of  reasoning  in  all  mat- 
ters concerning  the  Negro.  It  inverts  everything, 
turns  truth  upside  down  and  puts  the  case  of  the 
unfortunate  Negro  inside  out  and  wrong  end  fore- 
most every  time.  There  is,  however,  nearly  always 
some  truth  on  their  side  of  error,  and  it  is  so  in 
this  case. 

When  these  false  reasoners  assert  that  the  con- 
dition of  the  emancipated  slave  is  wretched  and  de- 
plorable, they  partly  tell  the  truth,  and  I  agree  with 
them.  I  even  concur  with  them  in  the  statement 
that  the  Negro  is  physically,  in  certain  localities,  in 
a  worse  condition  to-day  than  in  the  time  of  slavery, 

IS 


Cfje    Conflict 


but  I  part  with  these  gentlemen  when  they  ascribe 
this  condition  to  emancipation.  To  my  mind,  the 
blame  does  not  rest  upon  emancipation,  but  the  de- 
feat of  emancipation.  It  is  not  the  work  of  the 
spirit  of  liberty,  but  the  work  of  the  spirit  of  bond- 
age. It  comes  of  the  determination  of  slavery  to 
perpetuate  itself,  if  not  under  one  form,  then  under 
another.  It  is  due  to  the  folly  of  endeavoring  to 
put  the  new  wine  of  liberty  in  the  old  bottles  ol 
slavery.  I  co  cede  the  evil,  but  deny  the  alleged 
cause.  The  landowners  of  the  South  want  the  labor 
of  the  Negro  on  the  hardest  terms  possible.  They 
once  had  it  for  nothing.  They  now  want  it  for  next 
to  nothing.  To  accomplish  this,  they  have  contrived 
three  ways — The  first  is,  to  rent  their  land  to  the 
Negro  at  an  exorbitant  price  per  annum  and  com- 
pel him  to  mortgage  his  crop  in  advance  to  pay  the 
rent.  The  laws  under  which  this  is  done  are  en- 
tirely to  the  interest  of  the  landlord.  He  has  a  first 
claim  upon  everything  produced  on  the  land.  The 
Negro  can  have  nothing,  can  keep  nothing,  can  sell 
nothing,  without  the  consent  of  the  landlord.  As  the 
Negro  is  at  the  start  poor  and  empty-handed,  he  has 
to  draw  on  the  landlord  for  meat  and  bread  to  feed 
himself  and  family  while  his  crop  is  growing.  The 
landlord  keeps  books,  the  Negro  does  not,  hence,  no 
matter  how  hard  he  may  work  or  how  saving  he 
may  be,  he  is,  in  most  cases,  brought  in  debt  at  the 
end  of  the  year,  and  once  in  debt  he  is  fastened  to 
the  land  as  by  hooks  of  steel.  If  he  attempts  to  leave 
he  may  be  arrested  under  the  order  of  the  law. 

Another  way  which  is  still  more  effective,  is  the 
practice  of  paying  the  laborer  with  orders  on  the 
store  instead  of  lawful  money.  By  this  means, 
money  is  kept  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Negro  and  the 
Negro  is  kept  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  landlord. 

16 


C&e   Conflict 

He  cannot  save  money  because  he  gets  no  money  to 
save.  He  cannot  seek  a  better  market  for  his  labor 
because  he  has  no  money  with  which  to  pay  his  fare 
and  because  he  is  by  that  vicious  order  system  al- 
ready in  debt,  and  therefore  already  in  bondage. 
Thus  he  is  riveted  to  one  place,  and  is,  in  some  sense, 
a  slave ;  for  a  man  to  whom  it  can  be  said,  "You  shall 
work  for  me  for  what  I  choose  to  pay  you,  and  how 
I  shall  choose  to  pay  you,"  is  in  fact  a  slave,  though 
he  may  be  called  a  free  man.  We  denounce  the  land- 
lord and  tenant  system  of  England,  but  it  can  be  said 
of  England  as  cannot  be  said  of  our  free  country, 
that  by  law  no  laborer  can  be  paid  for  labor  in  any 
other  than  lawful  money.  England  holds  any  other 
payment  to  be  a  penal  offence  and  punishable  by 
fine  and  imprisonment.  The  same  should  be  the  case 
in  every  state  in  the  American  Union. 

Under  the  mortgage  system  no  matter  how  indus- 
trious or  economical  the  Negro  may  be,  he  finds  him- 
self at  the  end  of  the  year  in  debt  to  the  landlord, 
and  from  year  to  year  he  toils  on  and  is  tempted  to 
try  again  and  again,  but  seldom  with  any  better  re- 
sult. With  this  power  over  the  Negro,  this  possession 
of  his  labor,  you  may  easily  see  why  the  South  some- 
times makes  a  display  of  its  liberality  and  brags  that 
it  does  not  want  slavery  back.  It  had  the  Negro's 
labor  heretofore  for  nothing,  and  now  it  has  it  for 
next  to  nothing,  and  at  the  same  time  is  freed  from 
the  obligation  to  take  care  of  the  young  and  the  aged, 
the  sick  and  the  decrepit.  There  is  not  much  virtue 
in  all  this,  yet  it  is  the  ground  of  loud  boasting. 

I  now  come  to  the  so-called,  but  miscalled,  "Negro 
Problem,"  as  a  characterization  of  the  relations  ex- 
isting in  the  Southern  States.  I  say  at  once,  I  do 
not  admit  the  justice  or  propriety  of  this  formula, 
as  applied  to  the  question  before  us.  Words  are 

17 


C  ft  e    Conflict 


things.  They  are  certainly  such  in  this  case,  hence 
they  give  us  a  misnomer  that  is  misleading  and  hence 
mischievous.  It  is  a  formula  of  Southern  origin  and 
has  a  strong  bias  against  the  Negro.  It  handicaps  his 
cause  with  all  the  prejudices  known  to  exist,  and  any- 
thing to  which  he  is  a  party.  It  has  been  accepted  by 
the  good  people  of  the  North,  as,  I  think,  without 
proper  thought  and  investigation.  It  is  a  crafty  in- 
vention and  is  in  every  way  worthy  of  its  inventors. 

It  springs  out  of  a  desire  to  throw  off  just  respon- 
sibility and  to  evade  the  performance  of  disagreeable 
but  manifest  duty.  Its  natural  effect  and  purpose  is 
to  divert  attention  from  the  true  issue  now  before  the 
American  people.  It  does  this  by  holding  up  and  pre- 
occupying the  public  mind  with  an  issue  entirely  dif- 
ferent from  the  real  one  in  question. 

That  which  is  really  a  great  national  problem  and 
which  ought  to  be  so  considered  by  the  whole  Ameri- 
can people,  dwarfs  into  a  "Negro  Problem."  The  de- 
vice is  not  new.  It  is  an  old  trick.  It  has  been  oft 
repeated  and  with  a  similar  purpose  and  effect.  For 
truth,  it  gives  us  falsehood.  For  innocence,  it  gives 
us  guilt.  It  removes  the  burden  of  proof  from  the  old 
master  class  and  imposes  it  upon  the  Negro.  It  puts 
upon  the  race  a  work  which  belongs  to  the  nation. 
It  belongs  to  that  craftiness  often  displayed  by  dispu- 
tants, who  aim  to  make  the  worse  appear  the  better 
reason.  It  gives  bad  names  to  good  things  and  good 
names  to  bad  things. 

The  Negro  has  often  been  the  victim  to  this  kind 
of  low  cunning.  You  may  remember  that  during  the 
late  war,  when  the  South  fought  for  the  perpetuity 
of  slavery,  it  usually  called  the  slaves  "domestic  ser- 
vants," and  slavery  "a  domestic  institution."  Harm- 
less names,  indeed,  but  the  things  they  stood  for 
were  far  from  harmless.  The  South  has  always 

18 


Cfte   Conflict 


known  how  to  have  a  dog  hanged  by  giving  him  a 
bad  name.  When  it  prefixed  "Negro"  to  the  nation- 
al problem  it  knew  that  the  device  would  awaken 
and  increase  a  deep-seated  prejudice  at  once  and  that 
it  would  repel  fair  and  candid  investigation. 

As  it  stands,  it  implies  that  the  Negro  is  the  cause 
of  whatever  trouble  there  is  in  the  South.  In  old 
slave  times,  when  a  little  white  child  lost  his  temper 
he  was  given  a  little  whip  and  told  to  go  and  whip 
"Jim"  or  "Sal,"  and  thus  he  regained  his  temper. 
The  same  is  true  to-day  on  a  large  scale.  I  repeat,  and 
my  contention  is,  that  this  Negro  problem  formula 
lays  the  fault  at  the  door  of  the  Negro  and  removes 
it  from  the  door  of  the  white  man,  shields  the  guilty 
and  blames  the  innocent,  makes  the  Negro  responsi- 
ble when  it  should  so  make  the  nation.  Now,  what 
the  real  problem  is,  we  all  ought  to  know.  It  is  not 
a  Negro  problem,  but  in  every  sense  a  great  national 
problem.  It  involves  the  question,  whether  after  all 
our  boasted  civilization,  our  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence, our  matchless  Constitution,  our  sublime  Chris- 
tianity, our  wise  statesmanship,  we,  as  a  people,  pos- 
sess virtue  enough  to  solve  this  problem  in  accor- 
dance with  wisdom  and  justice,  and  to  the  advantage 
of  both  races. 

The  marvel  is  that  this  old  trick  of  misnaming 
things,  so  often  displayed  by  Southern  politicians, 
should  have  worked  so  well  for  the  bad  cause  in 
which  it  is  now  employed,  for  the  American  people 
have  fallen  in  with  the  bad  idea  that  this  is  a  Negro 
problem,  a  question  of  the  character  of  the  Negro  and 
not  a  question  of  the  nation.  It  is  still  more  sur- 
prising that  the  colored  press  of  the  country  and 
some  of  our  colored  orators  have  made  the  same  mis- 
take and  still  insist  upon  calling  it  a  "Negro  problem," 
or  a  race  problem,  for  by  race,  they  mean  the  Negro 

19 


Cfce    Conflict 


race.  Now,  there  is  nothing  the  matter  with  the  Ne- 
gro whatever ;  he  is  all  right. 

Learned  or  ignorant,  he  is  all  right.  He  is  neither 
a  lyncher,  a  mobocrat  or  an  anarchist.  He  is  now 
what  he  has  ever  been,  a  loyal,  law-abiding,  hard- 
working and  peaceable  man;  so  much  so  that  men 
have  thought  him  cowardly  and  spiritless.  Had  he 
been  a  turbulent  anarchist  he  might  indeed  have  been 
a  troublesome  problem,  but  he  is  not. 

To  his  reproach,  it  is  sometimes  said  that  any 
other  people  in  the  world  would  have  invented  some 
violent  way  in  which  to  resent  their  wrongs.  If  this 
problem  depended  upon  the  character  and  conduct 
of  the  Negro  there  would  be  no  problem  to  solve; 
there  would  be  no  menace  to  the  peace  and  good  or- 
der of  Southern  society.  "  He  makes  no  unlawful 
fight  between  labor  and  capital.  That  problem,  which 
often  makes  the  American  people  thoughtful  is  not 
of  his  bringing,  though  he  may  some  day  be  com- 
pelled to  talk  of  this  tremendous  problem  in  common 
•with  other  laborers. 

He  has  as  little  to  do  with  the  cause  of  Southern 
trouble  as  he  has  with  its  cure.  There  is  no  reason, 
therefore,  in  the  world  why  his  name  should  be  given 
to  this  problem. 

It  is  false,  misleading  and  prejudicial,  and  like  all 
other  falsehoods  must  eventually  come  to  naught. 

I  well  remember,  as  others  may  remember,  that 
this  same  old  falsehood  was  employed  and  used 
against  the  Negro  during  the  late  war.  He  was  then 
charged  and  stigmatized  with  being  the  cause  of  the 
war,  on  the  principle  that  there  would  be  no  high- 
way robbers  if  there  were  nobody  on  the  road  to  be 
robbed.  But  as  absurd  as  this  pretense  was,  the 
color  prejudice  of  the  country  was  stimulated  by  it 

20 


and  joined  in  the  accusation  and  the  Negro  had  to 
bear  the  brunt  of  it. 

Even  in  the  North  he  was  hated  and  hunted  on 
account  of  it.  In  the  great  city  of  New  York  his 
houses  were  burned,  his  children  were  hunted  down 
like  wild  beasts  and  his  people  were  murdered  in  the 
streets,  all  because  "they  were  the  cause  of  the  war." 
Even  the  good  and  noble  Mr.  Lincoln,  one  of  the  best 
and  most  clear-sighted  men  that  ever  lived,  once  told 
a  committee  of  Negroes  who  waited  upon  him  at 
Washington,  that  "they  were  the  cause  of  the  war." 
Many  were  the  men  who  in  their  wrath  and  hate 
accepted  this  theory  and  wished  the  Negro  in  Africa, 
or  in  a  hotter  climate,  as  some  do  now. 

There  is  nothing  to  which  prejudice  is  not  equal 
in  the  way  of  perverting  the  truth  and  inflaming 
the  passions  of  men. 

But  call  this  problem  what  you  will  or  may,  the 
all  important  question  is:  How  can  it  be  solved? 
How  can  the  peace  and  tranquility  of  the  South  and 
of  the  country  be  secured  and  established? 

There  is  nothing  occult  or  mysterious  about  the 
answer  to  this  question.  Some  things  are  to  be  kept 
in  mind  when  dealing  with  this  subject,  and  should 
never  be  forgotten. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  in  the  order  of  Di- 
vine Providence  the  "man  who  puts  one  end  of  a 
chain  around  the  ankle  of  his  fellowman  will  find 
the  other  end  around  his  own  neck." 

And  it  is  the  same  with  a  nation.  Confirmation  of 
this  truth  is  as  strong  as  proofs  of  holy  writ.  As  we 
sow  we  shall  reap,  is  a  lesson  that  will  be  learned 
here  as  elsewhere. 

We  tolerated  slavery  and  it  has  cost  us  a  million 
graves  and  it  may  be  that  lawless  murder  now  rag- 
ing, if  permitted  to  go  on,  may  yet  bring  the  red  hand 

21 


Clbe   Conflict 


of  vengeance,  not  only  on  the  reverend  head  of  age, 
and  upon  the  heads  of  helpless  women,  but  upon  even 
the  innocent  babes  in  the  cradle. 

But  how  can  this  problem  be  solved?  I  will  tell 
you  how  it  can  be  solved.  It  cannot  be  solved  by 
keeping  the  Negro  poor,  degraded,  ignorant  and  half 
starved,  as  I  have  shown  is  now  being  done  in  South- 
ern States.  It  cannot  be  solved  by  keeping  back  the 
wages  of  the  laborer  by  fraud,  as  is  now  being  done 
by  the  landlords  of  the  South.  It  cannot  be  done  by 
ballot-box  stuffing,  by  falsifying  election  returns  or 
confusing  the  Negro  voter  by  cunning  devices.  It 
cannot  be  done  by  repealing  all  federal  laws  enacted 
to  secure  honest  elections.  It  can,  however,  be  done, 
and  very  easily  done,  for  where  there  is  a  will  there 
is  a  way. 

Let  the  white  people  of  the  North  and  South  con- 
quer their  prejudices. 

Let  the  Northern  press  and  pulpit  proclaim  the 
gospel  of  truth  and  justice  against  the  war  now  be- 
ing made  upon  the  Negro.  Let  the  American  people 
cultivate  kindness  and  humanity.  Let  the  South 
abandon  the  system  of  mortgage  labor  and  cease 
to  make  the  Negro  a  pauper  by  paying  him  dishon- 
est scrip  for  his  honest  labor. 

Let  them  give  up  the  idea  that  they  can  be  free 
while  making  the  Negro  a  slave.  Let  them  give  up 
the  idea  that  to  degrade  the  colored  man  is  to  elevate 
the  white  man. 

Let  them  cease  putting  new  wine  into  old  bottles 
and  mending  old  garments  with  new  cloth.  They  are 
not  required  to  do  much.  They  are  only  required 
to  undo  the  evil  they  have  done  in  order  to  solve 
this  problem. 

In  old  times  when  it  was  asked,  "How  can  we  abol- 
ish slavery?"  the  answer  was  "quit  stealing." 

22 


C6e    Conflict 


The  same  is  the  solution  of  the  race  problem  to- 
day. 

The  whole  thing  can  be  done  simply  by  no  longer 
violating  the  amendments  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  and  no  longer  evading  the  claims  of 
justice. 

If  this  were  done,  there  would  be  no  Negro  prob- 
lem or  national  problem  to  vex  the  South  or  to  vex 
the  nation. 

Let  the  organic  law  of  the  land  be  honestly  sus- 
tained and  obeyed.  Let  the  political  parties  cease  to 
palter  in  a  double  sense  and  live  up  to  the  noble 
declarations  we  find  in  their  platforms.  Let  the 
statesmen  of  our  country  live  up  to  their  convictions. 
In  the  language  of  ex-Senator  John  J.  Ingalls:  "Let 
the  nation  try  justice  and  the  problem  will  be 
solved." 

"Two  hundred  and  twenty  years  ago  the  Negro  was 
made  a  religious  problem,  one  which  gave  our  white 
forefathers  about  as  much  perplexity  and  annoyance 
as  we  now  profess.  At  that  time  the  problem  was  in 
respect  of  what  relation  a  Negro  should  sustain  to 
the  Christian  Church,  whether  he  was  in  fact  a  fit  sub- 
ject for  baptism,  and  Dr.  Godwin,  a  celebrated  di- 
vine of  his  time,  and  one  far  in  advance  of  his  breth- 
ren, was  at  the  pains  of  writing  a  book  of  two  hun- 
dred pages  or  more,  containing  an  elaborate  argu- 
ment to  prove  that  it  was  not  a  sin  in  the  sight  of  God 
to  baptize  a  Negro.  His  argument  was  very  able, 
very  learned,  very  long.  Plain  as  the  truth  may 
seem,  there  were  at  that  time  very  strong  arguments 
against  the  position  of  the  learned  divine.  As  usual, 
it  was  not  merely  the  baptism  of  the  Negro  that  gave 
trouble,  but  it  was  as  to  what  might  follow  such  bap- 
tism. 

The  sprinkling  him  with  water  was  a  very  simple 
23 


C6e    Conflict 


thing  and  easily  gotten  along  with,  but  the  slave- 
holders of  that  day  saw  in  the  innovation  something 
more  dangerous  than  cold  water. 

They  said  that  to  baptize  the  Negro  and  make  him 
a  member  of  the  Church  of  Christ  was  to  make  him 
an  important  person — in  fact,  to  make  him  an  heir 
of  Jesus  Christ. 

It  was  to  give  him  a  place  at  the  Lord's  supper. 

It  was  to  take  him  out  of  the  category  of  heathen- 
ism and  make  it  inconsistent  to  hold  him  as  a  slave, 
for  the  Bible  made  only  the  heathen  a  proper  sub- 
ject for  slavery. 

These  were  formidable  consequences,  certainly, 
and  it  is  not  strange  that  the  Christian  slave  holders 
of  that  day  viewed  these  consequences  with  immea- 
surable horror.  It  was  something  more  terrible  and 
dangerous  than  the  Civil  Rights  Bill  and  the  Four- 
teenth and  Fifteenth  Amendments  to  our  Constitu- 
tion. 

It  was  a  difficult  thing,  therefore,  at  that  day  to 
get  the  Negro  into  water.  Nevertheless,  our  learned 
doctor  of  divinity,  like  many  of  the  same  class  in 
our  day,  was  equal  to  the  emergency.  He  was  able 
to  satisfy  all  important  parties  to  the  problem,  ex- 
cept the  Negro,  and  him  it  did  not  seem  necessary 
to  satisfy. 

The  doctor  was  a  skilled  dialectician.  He  could 
not  only  divide  the  word  with  skill,  but  he  could  di- 
vide the  Negro  into  two  parts.  He  argued  that  the 
Negro  had  a  soul  as  well  as  a  body,  and  insisted  that 
while  his  body  rightfully  belonged  to  his  master  on 
earth,  his  soul  belonged  to  his  master  in  heaven.  By 
this  convenient  arrangement,  somewhat  metaphysical, 
to  be  sure,  but  entirely  evangelical  and  logical,  the 
problem  of  Negro  baptism  was  solved. 

But  with  the  Negro  in  the  case,  as  I  have  said,  the 
24 


Conflict 


argument  was  not  entirely  satisfactory.  The  opera- 
tion was  much  like  that  by  which  the  white  man  got 
the  turkey  and  the  Indian  got  the  crow.  When  the 
Negro  looked  for  his  body,  that  belonged  to  his 
earthly  master;  when  he  looked  around  for  his  soul, 
that  had  been  appropriated  by  his  heavenly  master. 
And  when  he  looked  around  for  something  that 
really  belonged  to  himself,  he  found  nothing  but  his 
shadow,  and  that  vanished  into  the  air,  when  he 
might  most  want  it. 

One  thing,  however,  is  to  be  noticed  with  satisfac- 
tion ;  it  is  this :  something  was  gained  to  the  cause  of 
righteousness  by  this  argument.  It  was  a  contribu- 
tion to  the  cause  of  liberty. 

It  was  largely  in  favor  of  the  Negro.  It  was  a 
plain  recognition  of  his  manhood,  and  was  calculated 
to  set  men  to  thinking  that  the  Negro  might  have 
some  other  important  rights,  no  less  than  the  religious 
right  to  baptism. 

Thus,  with  all  its  faults,  we  are  compelled  to  give 
the  pulpit  the  credit  of  furnishing  the  first  impor- 
tant argument  in  favor  of  the  religious  character  and 
manhood  rights  of  the  Negro. 

Dr.  Godwin  was  undoubteldy  a  good  man.  He 
wrote  at  a  time  of  much  moral  darkness  and  when 
property  in  man  was  nearly  everywhere  recognized 
as  a  rightful  institution. 

He  saw  only  a  part  of  the  truth.  He  saw  that  the 
Negro  had  a  right  to  be  baptized  but  he  could  not  all 
at  once  see  that  he  had  a  primary  and  paramount 
right  to  himself. 

But  this  was  not  the  only  problem  slavery  had  in 
store  for  the  Negro.  Time  and  events  brought  an- 
other, and  it  was  this  very  important  one:  Can  the 
Negro  sustain  the  legal  relation  of  a  husband  to  a 
wife?  Can  he  make  a  valid  marriage  contract  in 

25 


€6e    Conflict 


this  Christian  country  ?  This  problem  was  solved  by 
the  same  slaveholding  authority,  entirely  against 
the  Negro. 

Such  a  contract,  it  was  argued,  could  only  be  bind- 
ing upon  men  providentially  enjoying  the  right  to 
life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  and  since 
the  Negro  is  a  slave  and  slavery  a  divine  institution, 
legal  marriage  was  wholly  inconsistent  with  the  in- 
stitution of  slavery. 

When  some  of  us  at  the  North  questioned  the 
ethics  of  this  conclusion,  we  were  told  to  mind  our 
business,  and  our  Southern  brethren  asserted,  as 
they  assert  now,  that  they  alone  are  competent  to 
manage  this  and  all  other  questions  relating  to  the 
Negro.  In  fact,  there  has  been  no  end  to  the  prob- 
lems of  some  sort  or  other  involving  the  Negro  in 
difficulty. 

Can  the  Negro  be  a  citizen  ?  was  the  question  of  the 
Dred  Scott  decision.  Can  the  Negro  be  educated? 
Can  the  Negro  be  induced  to  work  for  himself  with- 
out a.  master?  Can  the  Negro  be  a  soldier?  Time 
and  events  have  answered  these  and  all  other  like 
questions.  We  have  among  us  Negroes  who  have 
taken  first  prizes  as  scholars;  those  who  have  won 
distinction  for  courage  and  skill  on  the  battlefield ; 
those  who  have  taken  rank  as  lawyers,  doctors  and 
ministers  of  the  Gospel ;  those  who  shine  among  men 
in  every  useful  calling,  and  yet  we  are  called  a  prob- 
lem— a  tremendous  problem ;  a  mountain  of  diffi- 
culty; a  constant  source  of  apprehension;  a  disturb- 
ing social  force,  threatening  destruction  to  the  holi- 
est and  best  interest  of  society. 

I  declare  this  statement  concerning  the  Negro, 
whether  by  good  Miss  Willard,  Bishop  Haygood, 
Bishop  Fitzgerald,  ex-Governor  Chamberlain,  or  by 
26 


C  &  e    Conflict 


any  and  all  others,  as  false  and  deeply  injurious  to 
the  colored  citizens  of  the  United  States. 

But,  my  friends,  I  must  stop.  Time  and  strength 
are  not  equal  to  the  task  before  me.  But  could  I 
be  heard  by  this  great  nation,  I  would  call  to  mind 
the  sublime  and  glorious  truths  with  which,  at  its 
birth,  it  saluted  and  startled  a  listening  world.  Its 
voice  then  was  the  trump  of  an  archangel  sum- 
moning hoary  forms  of  oppression  and  time-honored 
tyranny  to  judgment.  Crowned  heads  heard  it  and 
shrieked.  Toiling  millions  heard  it  and  clapped  their 
hands  for  joy. 

It  announced  the  advent  of  a  nation,  based  upon 
hitman  brotherhood  and  the  self-evident  truths  of 
liberty  and  equality.  Its  mission  was  the  redemption 
of  the  world  from  the  bondage  of  ages.  .  .  . 

Apply  these  sublime  and  glorious  truths  to  the 
situation  now  before  you.  Put  away  your  race 
prejudice.  Bannish  the  idea  that  one  class  must  rule 
over  another.  Recognize  the  fact  that  the  rights  of 
the  humblest  citizens  are  as  worthy  of  protection, 
as  those  of  the  highest  and  your  problem  will  be 
solved ;  and  whatever  may  be  in  store  for  you  in  the 
future,  whether  prosperity  or  adversity,  whether  you 
have  foes  within,  whether  there  shall  be  peace  or 
war,  based  upon  the  eternal  principles  of  truth,  jus- 
tice and  humanity,  with  no  class  having  cause  for 
complaint  or  grievance,  your  Republic  will  stand  and 
flourish  forever." 

FREDERICK  DOUGLASS. 

Were  I  to  conclude  this  effort  at  this  point,  enough 
would  be  said  in  refutation  of  anything  which  has 
been  spoken  or  written,  or  that  may  ever  be  spoken 
or  written  derogatory  to  the  Negro  race.  But  I  shall 
not  stop.  A  soul  shall  speak  its  defiance  to  the  op- 
27 


C&e   Conflict 


pressor  until  oppression  shall  cease.  Truth  shall  op- 
pose falsehood,  right  against  wrong,  light  against 
darkness.  Truth,  justice  and  right  must  prevail.  It 
is  an  invincible  trinity — anchored  in  the  consciences 
of  just  men  and  women  everywhere  who  shall  over- 
throw oppression  by  opposing  moral  purity  to  moral 
corruption.  The  potency  of  truth  to  error.  Hence,  I 
take  up  the  third  section  of  "The  Mulatto  Negro — 
The  Yellow  Peril  of  the  North."  The  writer  says: 

"With  the  industrial  failure  of  his  race  in  the  low- 
er grades  of  service,  the  educated  and  professional 
Negroes  of  the  South  will  be  forced  into  new  fields ; 
for  it  is  true  of  Negroes  as  of  whites,  that  those  who 
do  the  head  work  must  be  supported  by  those  who 
work  with  the  hands.  What  field  so  alluring  to  the 
educated  and  ambitious  Negro  as  the  region  whence 
the  propaganda  is  so  often  heard  that  only  ignorance 
and  poverty  separate  him  from  the  white  man?  That 
once  he  has  educated  and  enriched  himself  the  Negro 
should  be  admitted  to  full  partnership  with  the  An- 
glo-Saxon. It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  article  to 
quarrel  with  this  propaganda.  Let  those  hold  it  who 
will,  only  from  henceforth  let  those  who  preach  it, 
practice  it.  We  have  reached  the  point  where  the  ex- 
ponents of  this  idea  should  either  back  it  with  their 
example,  or  back  down  from  it  altogether.  The  edu- 
cated Negro  of  the  North  ivill  be  satisfied  with  noth- 
ing short  of  full  recognition,  and  those  who  are  not 
yet  ready  to  accede  to  all  his  demands  would  do  well 
to  draw  the  line  while  there  is  time." 

Right  here,  permit  me  to  plead  the  readers' 
thoughtful  consideration  of  this  third  section  of 
the  article  now  under  review;  especially  the 
paragraph  just  quoted,  as  I  shall  oppose  to 
it  a  logic  the  force  of  which  is  demonstrated 
in  a  law  which  cannot  be  infracted,  but  that 
28 


C6e   Conflict 


in  the  persistent  attempt  to  do  so  a  national  calamity 
must  result.  In  this,  the  writer  and  all  others  who 
think  as  she  does  or  follow  her  teachings,  are  as 
Satan :  rebelling  in  heaven — fighting  against  an  invis- 
ible, invincible,  all-powerful  host.  The  issue  is  in- 
evitable, and  her  ridiculousness  is  only  equalled  by 
the  enraged  bull  who  would  attempt  to  butt  a  locomo- 
tive off  the  track.  But  back  to  her  argument — "We 
plead  only  for  honest  declaration  and  purpose."  The 
writer  above  quoted  concludes  his  remarks  with: 
"The  misery  of  all  our  debating  about  the  Negro  is 
that  we  cannot  honestly  pretend  to  be  glad  that  he  is 
here  or  to  desire  that  his  seed  shall  increase.  Yet 
surely  we  can  afford  the  honesty  of  telling  him  the 
truth."  This  is  the  only  plea  that  can  fairly  be  made 
for  the  Negro  now.  This  he  has  a  right  to  demand, 
and  this  is  finally  the  only  kindness  we  can  show  him 
at  present.  Yet  it  is  precisely  this  which  very  few 
people  seem  disposed  to  do.  The  political  complica- 
tions which  envelop  him  at  the  North  and  his  en- 
tanglements with  the  industrial  system  of  the  South 
have  hitherto  prevented  a  free  expression  of  opinion 
in  regard  to  him.  He  has  been  deceived  and  misled 
by  specious  theories  and  glittering  generalities  until 
he  might  well  be  pardoned  for  praying:  "Lord,  save 
us  from  our  friends ;  we  may  be  able  to  take  care  of 
our  enemies !" 

"In  the  autobiography  of  a  Northern  Negress,  pub- 
lished in  the  Independent  some  months  ago,  occurs 
this  sentence:  'I  can  but  believe  that  the  prejudice 
that  blights  and  hinders  is  quite  as  decided  in  the 
North  as  in  the  South,  but  does  not  manifest  itself 
so  openly  and  brutally.'  Probably  her  Southern 
readers  thought  the  Northern  colored  sister's  adverb 
"brutally"  might  be  more  justly  rendered  "frankly," 
— but  that  is  immaterial.  The  important  thing  is  her 

29 


Cjje   Conflict 


testimony  to  the  existence  of  the  "blighting  preju- 
dice" in  the  section  where  she  was  born  and  reared, 
and  where  she  claims  her  father  was  an  officer  in 
a  white  church  for  years,  and  her  mother  was  per- 
mitted to  teach  in  a  white  Sunday  school  and  young 
white  girls  officiated  at  her  own  wedding.  And  still 
she  was  not  satisfied ! 

The  Negro  is  what  the  French  term  "a  difficult 
subject."  He  is  so  humble  in  his  lowliness  and  so 
perked-up  in  his  arrogance  that  one  fluctuates  be- 
tween indulgent  commiseration  and  an  indignant  de- 
sire to  punch  his  head  in  a  hopeless  effort  to  adjust 
one's  mental  plane  to  his  attitude."  In  this  para- 
graph, in  fact,  in  this  entire  section  of  her  article, 
she  shows  her  animus  and  unreasonable  bias — her 
brain  seemingly  colorpho-biased ; — reminding  me  of 
DR.  GEORGE  MORTON  and  MISS  BERTHA 

GILMAN. 

the  aristocratic  and  wealthy  young  woman  living  in 
the  country  village  not  far  out  from  Philadelphia, 
and  of  whom  it  was  reported  in  big  headlines  in 
all  the  Philadelphia  papers  a  few  years  ago,  that 
one  night  she  awoke  and  seeing  a  "big,  broad-shoul- 
dered mulatto  Negro,  with  a  slouch  hat  on,  climbing 
in  her  bed-room  window — she  did  not  frighten  and 
scream  as  characteristic  of  her  sex,  but  quietly  got 
out  of  bed,  cocked  her  little  revolver,  aimed  and 
fired  at  the  "big,  burly  brute."  Her  aim  was  good; 
as  she  had  learned  to  shoot  while  visiting  on  a  ranch 
somewhere  out  West.  She  heard  her  victim  drop 
from  the  window  to  the  ground  below.  She  hastened 
to  the  window  and  looking  down  by  the  bright  moon- 
light, she  saw  him  on  the  ground  below  and  pumped 
two  more  bullets  into  him  and  "heard  him  groan." 
Yes,  I  have  all  the  newspapers  with  the  full  account 
and  the  young  woman's  photo  as  published.  And  a 
30 


C&e    Conflict 


learned  physician  examined  the  blood  as  left  in  the 
trail  by  the  "big  mulatto  Negro"  as  he  dragged 
himself  away  into  the  bushes — where,  inside  of  a 
week  afterward  an  honest  white  constable,  seeking 
the  wounded  prowler,  followed  the  trail  of  blood 
which  the  physician  had  declared  to  be  human  blood 
and  found  what  was  in  reality  a  "big  torn  cat"  with 
three  bullet  holes  in  its  carcass.  Thus  exploding  an- 
other bad  case  of  Negro  on  the  brain. 

Back  to  "the  mulatto  Negro" — "His  presence  in 
any  considerable  numbers  at  the  North  will  force 
public  sentiment  there  to  line  up  on  the  issue.  Un- 
like the  South,  the  North  does  not  present  a  united 
front  on  this  question,  and  this  will  increase  her  diffi- 
culties when  her  time  comes  to  wrestle  with  the 
'problem.' " 

As  promised,  I  will  oppose  to  this  argument  a 
logic  irrefutable.  In  "McGirt's  Quarterly  Maga- 
zine," July,  August,  September,  1909,  a  series  of 
six  articles  on  "The  Future  of  the  American  Negro" 
is  just  concluded.  From  it  I  quote: 

"This  is  an  economic  age;  men  are  studying  the 
workings  of  economic  law  more  now  than  ever  be- 
fore. They  are  beginning  to  find  that  as  no  law  of 
man's  making  can  annul  or  divert  the  effect  of  the 
physical  laws  of  nature,  so  no  human  legislation  can 
withstand  the  workings  of  economic  laws.  They  are 
both  immutable.  For  example,  we  have  already 
found  out  that  legislation  cannot  fix  prices  nor 
wages.  And  though  a  few  centuries  ago  we  tried 
to  fix  these  things,  yet  the  man  who  would  introduce 
a  bill  in  Congress  to  fix  the  price  of  lard  or  sugar 
or  bread  or  the  wages  of  all  carpenters  or  day  la- 
borers would  be  laughed  to  scorn.  We  have  learned 
that  these  things  are  fixed  by  the  economic  law  of 

31 


C6e    Conflict 


supply  and  demand;  that  to  legislate  supply  and  de- 
mand out  of  existence  is  impossible." 

"Dr.  Seligman,  of  Columbia  University,  to  whom 
we  have  previously  referred,  says  that  economic  free- 
dom is  absolutely  necessary  for  the  highest  develop- 
ment of  any  people,  and  that  a  nation  which  does  not 
give  the  highest  economic  freedom,  or  tries  to  inter- 
fere with  this  freedom  by  legislation,  may  succeed 
for  a  while,  but  in  the  long  run  must  fail  of  its  high- 
est development.  He  says  there  are  seven  various 
kinds  of  economic  freedom.  These  he  enumerates 
as  follows: 

On  pages  165  to  168  (i)  The  first  and  most  obvi- 
ous form  is  "freedom  of  marriage  and  divorce."  This 
involves  the  right  of  any  man  of  good,  sound  mind 
to  marry  any  woman  of  the  same  character,  if  they 
both  be  willing,  without  any  outside  pressure  on  the 
part  of  the  State.  (2)  "Freedom  of  movement," 
which  permits  the  man  to  take  his  labor  wherever 
he  chooses  without  governmental  interference.  If  he 
thinks  it  will  net  him  more  to  work  in  California  than 
in  Maine,  he  is  at  liberty  to  go.  (3)  "Freedom  of 
occupation."  No  laws  should  prohibit  one  man  from 
going  into  any  occupation  which  he  desires,  provid- 
ed he  is  competent.  All  men  should  have  a  chance, 
so  that  the  best  may  come  to  the  top  and  the  worst 
go  to  the  bottom;  drop  out  or  change  to  some  other 
occupation,  all  willingly.  (4)  "Freedom  of  associa- 
tion." Every  man  can  associate  with  every  other 
man  who  desires  to  associate  with  him.  No  law 
should  prohibit  two  persons  who  want  to  associate 
from  doing  so.  (5)  "Freedom  of  consumption."  If 
a  man  works  he  ought  to  be  free  to  spend  his  money 
as  any  other  man.  It  is  against  all  economic  law, 
and  therefore  against  the  best  interest  of  a  people 
for  any  law  to  exist  which  permits  one  person  or 

32 


C 6e    Conflict 


group  of  people  to  buy  sugar  or  salt  and  forbids  an- 
other from  doing  this,  or  lets  one  have  automobiles 
and  prohibits  another  from  doing  so ;  to  let  one  have 
sleeping  cars  or  rooms  in  hotels  and  prohibits  an- 
other. All  men  ought  to  be  permitted  to  consume 
according  to  their  ability  to  pay,  and  no  human  law 
ought  to  interfere.  (6)  "Freedom  of  production," 
including  freedom  of  contract  and  enterprise.  All 
sane  men  ought  to  be  allowed  to  make  contracts,  and 
both  parties  ought  to  have  the  same  protection.  The 
law  should  not  know  the  employer  from  the  employe, 
or  the  black  from  the  white;  all  that  it  should  do 
should  be  to  protect  the  rights  of  each.  (7)  "Free- 
dom of  trade."  The  State  can  require  uniform  li- 
cense, but  should  put  no  burdens  on  one  tradesman 
that  it  does  not  put  on  another. 

These  are  some  of  the  forms  of  economic  freedom 
so  necessary  to  national  development.  It  took  the 
civilized  world  centuries  to  learn  them,  and  all  of 
them  are  now  accepted  by  most  civilized  nations  for 
internal  purposes.  All  except  the  7th  are  accepted  in 
the  United  States  of  America,  both  internally  and  ex- 
ternally, and  from  the  calls  for  revision  of  the  tariff 
it  appears  that  the  time  is  not  far  distant  when  we 
may  have  free  trade,  as  England  has  to-day. 

But  while  these  are  accepted  in  the  United  States, 
the  Negro  is  excluded  from  the  first,  fourth  and  fifth 
kind  of  freedom,  namely,  marriage  and  divorce,  of 
association  and  of  consumption.  The  ground  of  his 
exclusion  from  this  freedom  is  "social  equality," 
which  will  lead  to  the  amalgamation  of  the  races. 
Let  us  approach  the  subject  fairly  and  squarely, 
without  expressing  our  opinion  or  caring  for  the  ra- 
cial prejudices  of  black  or  white  men;  let  us  ap- 
proach it  from  the  viewpoint  of  the  student  of 
society.  From  this  viewpoint  it  is  not  hazarding  toe 

33 


€i)e    Conflict 

much  to  say  that  economic  progress  demands  that 
these  three  limitations  be  done  away  with.  The 
country  cannot  get  the  best  out  of  itself  or  out  of 
the  Negro  so  long  as  these  three  limitations  are  per- 
mitted. They  are  uneconomic,  therefore  unnatural 
and,  despite  laws  and  prejudices  must  go.  To  show 
how  impotent  the  law  is,  let  us  illustrate: 

There  should  be  freedom  of  marriage,  says  the 
economist.  Negroes  and  whites  shall  not  marry, 
says  the  law. 

Now,  marriage,  economically  speaking,  is  a  mating 
of  males  and  females,  and  its  chief  aim  is  to  pre- 
serve and  increase  the  population.  To  have  children 
is  the  chief  aim  of  marriage  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  economist.  But  the  law  steps  in  and  says  that 
there  shall  be  no  marriage  between  them. 

But  what  does  it  accomplish?  Nothing,  only  to 
retard  the  working  of  economic  law.  For  it,  indeed, 
prohibits  marriage  but  does  not  prevent  children.  The 
fact  that  the  race  of  mulattoes  is  constantly  increas- 
ing, and  increasing  more  to-day  than  ever  before, 
is  ample  evidence  of  the  impotency  of  legislative 
statute  to  prohibit  the  mating  of  men  and  women  of 
different  classes,  and  the  birth  of  children  from  their 
intercourse.  That  is  why  we  do  not  advocate  social 
equality  or  amalgamation  or  miscegenation  or  any 
other  such  unnecessary  thing,  for  it  does  no  good  to 
advocate  or  oppose  these  than  it  does  to  oppose  or  ad- 
vocate gravitation  or  evolution,  or  the  course  of  the 
stars.  They  are  fixed  by  higher  laws  than  those  made 
by  human  legislatures. 

Of  course  the  Negroes  shall  continue  to  grow  in 
wealth  and  intelligence ;  in  power  to  organize,  and  in 
their  influence  in  politics.  This  being  true,  they  shall 
become  more  and  more  differentiated  into  social 
groups  and  classes,  and  though  they  remain  for  gen- 

34 


Cbe   conflict 


erations  to  a  degree  separate,  yet  it  can  be  depended 
upon  that  in  a  few  decades  they  will  become  more  and 
more  diffused  among  the  nation  as  a  whole. 

They  cannot  always  maintain  their  position  of  iso- 
lation. As  soon  as  the  Anglo-Saxon  finds  it  to  his 
advantage  to  attempt  to  break  up  the  Negro's  isola- 
tion, the  Negro's  future  in  this  country  will  depend 
upon  the  Negro's  economic  development. 

They  are  now  in  a  strategic  position.  And  if  they 
use  the  opportunities  they  now  have  even  halfway 
well  they  cannot  be  kept  down.  It  is  said  that  when 
James  K.  Vardaman  was  inaugurated  Governor  of 
Mississippi,  that  some  of  his  partisans  predicted  that 
the  Negroes  would  "be  put  in  their  place." 

The  fact  was,  more  Negroes  rose  in  business  and 
otherwise  in  Mississippi  during-  Vardaman's  adminis- 
tration than  in  all  the  forty  years  preceding.  They 
established  more  banks  and  more  schools,  more  soci- 
eties and  more  businesses  than  ever  before.  Some 
ignorant  whites  said.  "Vardaman  would  stop  Negro 
women  from  wearing  silk  dresses,"  but  the  women 
wore  many  more  than  before,  and  as  one  man  re- 
marked, underdresses  too. 

Some  women  in  Jackson  went  to  Vardaman  to  get 
him  to  force  Negro  women  to  work  for  them  at  a 
low  price.  But,  despite  the  fact  that  he  was  gover- 
nor, and  had  a  willing  Legislature,  he  found  it  impos- 
sible to  be  of  help  to  these  would-be  house-mis- 
tresses ;  for  economic  laws  are  stronger  than  human 
laws. 

And  thus  I  claim  that  there  is  no  power  under 
heaven  to  keep  the  Negroes  down,  they  have  begun 
to  rise  and  they  must  rise  if  America  is  to  be  the 
great  nation  she  hopes  to  be;  for  as  no  nation  can 
survive  half  slave  and  half  free,  so  none  can  make 
permanent  progress  where  there  is  a  double  standard 

35 


Conflict 


of  morals,  in  politics,  in  business  or  in  law;  one  for 
whites  and  the  other  for  blacks.  They  all  must  go." 
Thus  it  is  evident  that  the  harder  the  Negro  is  thrown 
down  the  higher  he  bounces.  Like  the  fabled 
dragon — if  its  head  is  cut  off  a  thousand  other  heads 
spring  from  the  bleeding  neck,  and  from  every  drop 
of  blood  shed  springs  a  young  dragon. 

Oppression  is  the  womb  from  whence  springs 
civilization.  Through  it  and  in  the  multiplicity  of  po- 
litical parties  among  the  whites  I  see  the  salvation 
finally  of  the  Negro  race. 

Professor  Kelly  Miller,  in  his  book  "Race  Adjust- 
ment," says:  "Genius  knows  no  age,  no  country,  no 
race.  It  belongs  to  mankind.  The  Negro  enters  in- 
to the  inheritance  of  all  the  ages  on  equal  terms  with 
the  rest,  and  who  can  say  that  he  will  not  contribute 
his  quota  of  genius  to  enrich  the  blood  of  the  world  ?" 
Yes,  the  future  yet  remains  that  the  Negro  race  will 
by  the  exercise  of  thought  draw  out  evidences,  and 
produce  facts  yet  unknown  to  the  annals  of  history. 

As  declared  in  my  introduction,  that  they  who  es- 
pouse the  cause  of  righteousness  will  shed  a  radiancy, 
illumining  a  path  for  their  posterity,  and  that  their 
personality  would  stride  down  the  ages  in  splendor 
— as  evidence  a  great  man  and  a  statesman  who  has 
just  died,  in  the  person  of  Grover  Cleveland. 

He  speaks  from  the  tomb  on  this  great  national 
question  in  and  through  his  deeds  which  lives  and 
works.  Good  men  and  women  everywhere  honor 
his  memory,  Philadelphia  having  just  erected  and 
dedicated  to  his  memory  a  public  school  building  at 
a  cost  of  $2,500,000,  accommodating  1,200  pupils. 

In  the  "A.  M.  E.  Review,"  July,  1894,  appeared  by 
me  an  article  entitled  "Cleveland's  Administration 
Influencing  Public  Opinion."  Pertinent  to  this  part 
of  my  argument,  I  quote  from  that  article,  "I  regard 

36 


C  &  e   Conflict 


Grover  Cleveland  in  many  ways  one  of  the  most  re- 
markable men  that  ever  attracted  public  notice. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  his  selections  for  cabinet 
portfolios  and  other  high  appointments  have  contrib- 
uted more  than  anything  in  recent  years  toward  the 
solution  of  vexed  national  problems,  and  especially 
toward  the  easy  and  certain  solution  of  a  problem 
the  positive  existence  of  which  is  cause  for  the  na- 
tion's greatest  anxiety;  and  that  problem  exists  in 
the  denial  of  civil  and  political  rights  to  more  than 
16,000,000  people,  who  by  Congressional  enactments, 
amendatory  to  the  national  Constitution  is  made — 
first,  by  Article  XIII,  Freedmen;  and  second,  by  Ar- 
ticle XIV,  is  given  the  right  of  franchise ;  and  third, 
by  Article  XV,  is  guaranteed  protection  in  the  exer- 
cise of  that  right.  Here  allow  me  to  remark  that  the 
act  making  one  a  citizen  according  to  the  Constitu- 
tional meaning  of  the  term  citizen,  clothes  that  one 
with  all  the  privileges  and  immunities  peculiar  to  the 
protectional  guarantees  declared  by  the  fathers  of  this 
American  Republic  in  the  basic  principles  of  the  Con- 
stitution, namely :  "Life,  liberty  and  the  peaceful  pur- 
suit of  happiness."  Hence,  when  the  Negroes  were  by 
Article  XIII  made  citizens  there  was  no  need  for  fur- 
ther legislation  enacting  the  Fourteenth  and  Fif- 
teenth Amendment  to  the  Constitution. 

The  recent  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  sustain- 
ing the  contention  of  Fortune  V.  S.  Trainor  evi- 
dences the  fact  that  the  Negro  citizen  has  every  im- 
munity and  privilege  embraced  in  and  recognized  by 
the  Constitution,  even  as  that  of  any  other  citizen, 
notwithstanding  the  nullity  of  the  Fifteenth  Article, 
the  inanity  of  the  Fourteenth  Article,  and  the  repeal 
of  the  Federal  election  laws. 

Nevertheless,  public  opinion  appears  indifferent  to 
the  disposition  of  some  people  to  disregard  the  Negro 

37 


C&e    Conflict 


citizen's  constitutional,  civil  and  political  rights,  and 
herein  is  the  Negro  problem. 

In  emphasis  of  our  claim  to  the  existence  of  a 
grave  national  problem,  Mr.  John  Temple  Graves, 
the  brilliant  ex-editor  of  "Dixie,"  says :  "Let  me  as- 
sume, without  argument,  that  no  thinking  man  of  to- 
day questions  the  existence  of  a  race  problem — a 
vital  and  present  and  pressing  problem,  which  chal- 
lenges at  once  the  humanity,  the  pride,  the  integrity 
and  the  safety  of  the  Republic.  It  is  the  bar  to  fra- 
ternity and  to  the  unity  of  national  sentiment.  It 
is  the  obstruction  in  the  way  of  foreign  immigration 
and  capital.  It  throttles  liberty  of  sentiment  and 
suffrage  in  the  South.  It  poisons  the  Southern  bal- 
lot. It  demoralises  justice  in  the  Southern  courts. 
It  steadily  threatens  the  peace  and  safety  of  society. 
It  impedes  the  progress  and  full  development  of  a 
race."  Yes,  it  stains  the  Judicial  ermine  with  foul 
murder  and  more  in  the  South. 

The  condition  could  not  be  more  truthfully  or 
beautifully  stated,  but  Mr.  Graves,  in  prescribing  a 
panacea  falls  into  the  same  error  as  others  who 
have  come  like  him,  and  gone  before  him,  while  the 
problem  remains  a  fact  not  to  be  solved  by  African 
deportation,  neither  by  separate  statehood  for  the 
Negroes  as  suggested  by  Mr.  Graves,  Bishop  H.  M. 
Turner,  Dr.  Edward  W.  Blyden  and  Mr.  McKinney, 
of  Virginia. 

No!  Mr.  Graves  must  face  the  situation,  and 
though  grave  it  be,  he  and  others  must  first  recognize 
and  admit  that  whatever  in  this  problem  is  cause  for 
local,  national  or  universal  alarm,  the  white  people 
in  the  South  particularly,  and  the  white  peo- 
ple throughout  the  country  generally,  are  respon- 
sible, for  in  that  the  Negro's  condition  in  this  country 
is  what -the  white  people  have  made  it,  and  now  to 

38 


change  this  condition  the  panacea  demanded  is  sim- 
ple justice.  Nothing  short  of  that  will  do  it.  ... 

Hence,  long  magazine  and  newspaper  articles  and 
flowery  speeches  are  but  a  waste  of  time  and  breath. 

Justice  must  finally  come  through  the  deeper 
thought,  greater  honor  and  higher  intelligence  of  the 
nation,  and  the  nation,  as  a  whole,  is  taking  on  these 
qualities  through  cosmopolitan  intermingling  and  na- 
tional contact  of  the  West  and  South  with  the  East 
and  North. 

This  cosmopolitan  intermingling  and  national  con- 
tact of  thought  and  energy  seems  to  be  what  Mr. 
Graves  and  all  others  of  his  way  of  thinking  dread, 
especially  if  the  Negro  is  to  be  considered  fairly  and 
as  a  man  therein.  But  despite  all  objections,  thought 
is  being  revolutionized  and  prejudices  overcome 
through  the  opinions  expressed  in  print  by  men  and 
women,  and  by  party  leaders  who  are  uncompromis- 
ingly wedded  to  the  cause  of  right  and  justice  rather 
than  party  success. 

The  noiseless  conscience  of  a  divine  and  irresisti- 
ble providence  in  nature  is  like  a  great  maelstrom  at 
work  purifying  public  opinion  even  as  the  wreckage 
and  refuse  of  ocean  is  swallowed  up ;  and  thus  Mr. 
Graves  and  all  others  of  his  way  of  thinking  are  be- 
ing drawn  by  the  whirlpool  and  carried  down  the 
vortex  to  trouble  earth  no  more. 

In  this  relation  Mr.  Cleveland  has  done  and  is 
doing  great  good.  Through  his  administrations  Car- 
lisle, Watterson,  Bayard,  Pugh,  Morgan,  Mills,  La- 
mar,  Gorman,  Garland  and  other  strong  leaders  in 
the  South,  not  incapable  of  broader  thought,  were 
brought  into  relations  and  in  touch  with  the  nation's 
higher  and  better  thought  as  they  had  not  before 
conceived  of. 

Hence  these  men  are  to-day  ashamed  of  their  for- 
39 


C  &  e    Conflict 


mer  selves,  since  they  now  see  how  narrow  were  their 
views,  how  contracted  their  thoughts  on  public  ques- 
tions. Their  higher  opportunities  and  broader  asso- 
ciations now  enable  them  to  see  how  little  and  un- 
worthy of  themselves  were  their  former  opinions.  It 
certainly  is  a  mutual  help  by  way  of  mental  improve- 
ment and  manhood  development  to  associate  with 
great  minds  and  lofty  spirits  at  Delmonico's  in  New- 
York,  and  as  the  guest  of  the  Home  Market  and 
other  clubs  in  Boston,  at  the  nation's  capitol  and 
among  the  royalties  abroad. 

One  cannot  enjoy  such  opportunities  and  then  be 
narrow  unless  he  be  both  hide  and  brain  bound. 
Therefore,  if  for  nothing  more  than  these  appoint- 
ments to  the  democratic  party,  Cleveland  and  his  ad- 
ministration are  deserving  of  praise,  for  aid  to  this 
extent  has  been  given  toward  the  solution  of  the 
nation's  problems. 

Again,  the  appointment  by  Mr.  Cleveland  of  Ne- 
groes to  high  positions  of  trust  and  emolument  has 
added  wonderfully  toward  the  easy  and  certain  solu- 
tion of  the  Negro  problem,  in  that  by  such  appoint- 
ments, first,  personal  ambitions,  self-interest  and  an 
almost  general  disposition  among  white  democrats, 
and  especially  at  the  South,  to  discredit  the  Negro's 
ability  is  in  great  measure  overcome  by  their  animus 
being  aroused  to  study  more  observantly  the  Negro 
as  he  really  is,  and  being  finally  convinced  of  his 
sterling  qualities  and  susceptibility  and  ability  along 
with  that  of  others. 

Second,  the  appointment  of  Negroes  to  high  office 
lays  white  men  along  with  others  under  tribute  to 
them,  especially  when  Negro  diplomats  and  heads  of 
departments  have  patronage  to  dispense  and  influ- 
ence to  help  office-seekers. 

Thus,  in  all,  it  is  plainly  evident  that  Cleveland's 
40 


C&e    Conflict 


administrations  have  wonderfully  influenced  public 
opinion  toward  an  easy  and  certain  solution  of  the 
Negro  problem. 

Then  what  has  the  Negro  citizen  to  dread  from 
the  ascendency  of  a  Democrat  to  the  Presidency, 
gauged  by  Cleveland's  administrations? 

Some  of  the  important  appointments  by  President 
Cleveland  during  his  first  administration  were  C.  C. 
Astwood,  Consul  to  Santo-Domingo ;  Moses  Aaron 
Hopkins  and  Charles  H.  J.  Taylor,  Minister  Pleni- 
potentiary to  Liberia,  and  Mr.  Thompson,  Minister 
to  Hayti;  Wm.  H.  Matthews  and  James  Monroe 
Trotter,  Recorder  of  Deeds  of  District  of  Colum- 
bia. 

During  this,  his  second  administration,  he  ap- 
pointed Mr.  Astwood  Minister  to  Calais,  France,  and 
Mr.  Taylor,  Minister  to  Bolivia,  S.  A.  The  Senate 
failing  to  confirm  Mr.  Taylor,  Mr.  Cleveland  re- 
cently appointed  him  Recorder  of  Deeds.  He  also 
sent  Mr.  Smith  Minister  to  Hayti. 

These  are  but  a  few  of  his  strong  appointments, 
not  to  mention  the  great  number  of  Negro  Republi- 
cans retained  in  office  and  held  over  throughout  his 
first  administration. 

In  spite  of  my  friend,  Senator  John  J.  Ingalls' 
philosophy,  the  Negroes  are  factors  not  only  in  the 
politics  of  this  country,  but  otherwise,  and  it  is  un- 
reasonable to  expect  them  to  advance  more  rapidly, 
while  only  twenty-eight  and  a  half  years  out  of  bon- 
dage." 

CESAR  A.  A.  TAYLOR. 

At  the  time  my  article  just  quoted  was  written  it 
is  seen  that  I  had  a  better  opinion  of  some  of  Cleve- 
land's Cabinet  selections  and  other  appointees  than 
they  were  worthy  of.  But  it  is  not  always  easy  to 

41 


C  i)  e   Conflict 


distinguish  the  false  prophet  from  the  real,  or  the 
despicable  demagogue   from  the  statesman. 

But  anathematic  oblivion  will  shroud  in  eclipse  all 
demagogic  scoundrels  whose  hides  and  brains  are  im- 
pervious to  reason,  ungracious,  and  invulnerable  to 
the  higher  sense  of  justice  to  mankind.  Such  some 
of  these  men  have  proven  to  be.  The  world  will  rate 
them,  execrate  them  and  then  forget  them. 

Their  offspring  in  seeking  entrance  into  the  world's 
forum  of  assembling  character,  intellect  and  general 
worth  will  be  shamed  by  the  memory  of  their  upas- 
like  turpitude;  as  some  of  these  murderous,  power- 
hunger  scamps  died  endeavoring  to  again  rivet  the 
shackles  upon  millions  of  their  fellowmen. 

Yes,  some  of  these  howling  mountebanks  are  dead, 
and  others  are  dying,  but  the  soul  of  justice  is  alive 
in  the  land.  ' 

In  two  recent  elections  in  Maryland,  an  intensely 
Southern  state,  the  principles  of  hell  was  defeated  at 
the  polls ;  the  last  time  on  the  2nd  of  jNovember,  this 
1909. 

"BLOOD  WILL  TELL." 

"Blood  will  tell"  is  an  expression  often  quoted, 
and  nothing  demonstrates  it  stronger  than  the 
achievements  of  one  individual  or  race  as  compared 
with  the  achievements  of  another  individual  or  race. 

Hence,  tell  me  of  the  hero's  fight. 

In  horrors'  blackest  night; 

For  they  alone  are  great 
Who  great  deeds  have  done ; 

Who  triumph  against  fate; 
Who  from  depths  to  heights  have  come. 

Yes,  blood  will  tell.  The  question  raised  by  this 
expression  is  answered  in  the  honest,  humane  judg- 

42 


C&e   Conflict 


ment  of  every  impartial,  unbiased  mind  in  the  affir- 
mative. 

Of  the  North  American  Indian  and  the  Negro, 
which  of  them  as  individuals  or  as  a  race  have  con- 
tributed most,  if  anything,  to  the  cause  of  civiliza- 
tion, discovery,  art,  science  or  invention? 

Has  an  Indian  ever  written  and  published  a  book 
of  interest?  No. 

Has  any  Indian  ever  invented  and  had  patented 
any  article  of  utility  ?  No. 

Has  any  Indian  ever  given  to  the  world  any  valu- 
able discovery  in  any  of  the  arts  or  sciences?  No. 

Have  the  Indians  ever  evolved  or  perfected  any 
organization — economical,  religious,  political,  or 
otherwise — of  a  civilized  nature?  No. 

Have  the  Indians  ever  demonstrated  ability  to  con- 
duct a  newspaper  or  magazine,  monthly,  daily  or 
weekly  ?  No. 

Have  the  Indians  ever  demonstrated  ability  in  com- 
merce or  the  trades  and  professions,  in  law,  in  medi- 
cine, in  journalism,  in  art,  in  science,  in  literature, 
in  politics  or  otherwise?  No. 

In  the  history  of  the  American  Republic  has  an 
Indian  ever  sat  as  a  member  in  either  branch  of 
the  United  States  Congress?  No. 

Has  an  Indian  ever  in  the  history  of  the  American 
government  held  a  position  of  national  significance? 
No. 

Then  what  have  the  Indians  ever  done  as  a  race  to 
class  them  among  the  benefactors  of  mankind?  Noth- 
ing. Absolutely  nothing. 

From  the  "Okamulga  Indian  Territory  Democrat" 
the  following: 

"A  few  hundred  dispirited,  ragged,  impoverished 
and  ignorant  people,  the  remnant  of  one  of  the  most 
powerful  tribes  of  North  America  is  all  that  is  left 

43 


Cije    Conflict 


of  a  once  happy  and  contented  race,  dwelling  in  Ar- 
cadian peace  and  primitive  simplicity.  These  full- 
blood  Cherokee  Indians  are  starving  to  death.  They 
have  no  food  in  their  cabins,  nor  sufficient  clothing 
on  their  backs.  While  half-breeds  and  whites  and 
the  Dawes  Commission  are  quarrelling  and  contend- 
ing over  rolls,  the  treaties  and  land  tenures,  the  real 
Indian — the  people  the  country  justly  belongs  to — 
are  actually  dying  in  the  hills  for  lack  of  food  and 
clothing." 

This  story  is  not  overdrawn.  It  is  not  tinged  with 
"yellow  journalism." 

Three  hours'  drive  into  the  hills  east  of  Grand 
River  will  prove  every  assertion,  and  the  half  has 
not  been  told  and  never  will  be.  Eternity  alone  will 
reveal  the  depths  of  poverty  of  these  people,  the 
owners,  but  not  the  users,  of  a  princely  estate.  Will 
nothing  be  done  to  relieve  these  exceeding  poor  peo- 
ple? Will  their  own  people,  their  kinsmen,  many 
of  them  rolling  in  wealth  gained  through  the  use  of 
more  than  their  part  of  the  common  estate,  will  they 
permit  these  poor  Indians  to  continue  to  perish  for 
lack  of  bread? 

This  is  the  present  dreadful,  actual  picture  of  a 
people  who  inhabited  and  owned  the  whole  American 
continent  when  the  white  man  first  set  foot  upon  it 
more  than  four  hundred  years  ago.  A  people  who 
have  been  exploited  and  despoiled  by  the  paleface 
from  that  time  on  down  to  the  present. 

Hence  the  half-breeds,  the  amalgamated  offsprings 
of  the  paleface,  are  now  the  despotic  and  tyrannical, 
tricky  masters  of  the  poor,  incompetent  remnant  of 
full-blooded  Indians. 

Has  any  other  race  ever,  will  any  other  race  ever, 
demonstrate  to  all  the  world  its  utter  incapacity  to 
overcome  its  environment,  or  even  to  rise  and  assert 

44 


Cbe   Conflict 


an  individuality  when  aided  by  others?  Echo  an- 
swers No. 

I  cannot  more  appropriately  ring  down  the  curtain 
on  this  sickening  tragedy  than  by  quoting  from  a 
Western  magazine,  published  by  two  Indian  half- 
breed  sisters,  the  following:  "Now  that  so  much  is 
being  written  about  Anglo-Saxon  dominion,  and 
Cubans  and  Filipinos  are  to  be  either  annexed  or 
absorbed,  perhaps  it  is  not  beside  the  question  to  look 
back  to  another  inauguration  of  Anglo-Saxon  do- 
minion a  century  or  two  ago,  with  the  landing  of  the 
Mayflower  and  the  settlement  at  Jamestown.  Doubt- 
less, a  consciousness  of  strength  and  power  induces 
contempt  for  the  conquered,  an  underrating  of  his 
good  qualities,  an  exaggeration  of  his  faults;  at  any 
rate,  whatever  the  fate  of  the  Cuban  or  Filipino,  it 
is  possible  that  the  thinking  world  has  never  done 
the  Indian  justice.  We  see  him  to-day,  the  remnant 
of  a  once  great  and  powerful  nation,  struggling 
against  the  inexorable  laws  of  the  survival  of  the  fit- 
test, and  unmindful  of  the  heroism  of  that  struggle, 
the  world  regards  him  with  idle  curiosity,  as  a  sort 
of  anachronism,  or  quotes  that  flippant  bit  of  epi- 
gram, "no  good  Indians  but  dead  ones." 

With  characteristic  selfishness,  the  great  mass  of 
humanity  has  passed  on  unheeding,  and  the  tragedy 
is  nearly  played  out  now ;  the  curtain  rose  on  the  last 
act  with  the  signing  of  the  allotment  of  lands  and  the 
opening  up  of  the  territory. 

A  hundred  years  or  more  will  mark  the  passing 
of  the  Indian. 

Though  there  will  be  those  who  proudly  trace  their 
descent  from  Indian  ancestry,  the  full-blood  will 
have  had  his  day. 

His  has  been  a  losing  cause,  though  led  heroically, 
45 


CDe   conflict 


meeting  the  issue  with  stoic  courage,  giving  no  sign, 
he  has  fulfilled  his  destiny. 

When  the  white  man  first  set  foot  on  the  North 
American  Continent  he  found  it  inhabited  by  the 
most  unique  type  of  savage  known  to  history.  Of 
commanding  physique,  brave,  courageous,  of  noble 
dignity,  faithful  to  a  fault,  neither  "forgetting  a  kind- 
ness nor  forgiving  an  injury/'  worshipping  his  Great 
Spirit  with  simple  faith,  hoping,  as  his  reward,  to 
live  forever  in  the  happy  hunting  grounds — such 
was  the  Indian  before  the  wise  men  came  out  of  the 
East.  The  blight  of  civilization  fell  upon  him,  driv- 
ing him  backward,  ever  backward,  breaking  his  spirit, 
usurping  his  domain,  sapping  his  strength. 

Yet  a  certain  quixotism  has  always  characterized 
the  Indian. 

He  has  a  keen  sense  of  justice,  and  though  suffer- 
ing from  the  grossest  injustice  himself,  he  cannot 
consent  to  inflict  it. 

When  fugitives  from  justice,  social  outcast,  ad- 
venturers, all  the  flotsam  and  jetsam  of  civilization 
sought  refuge  in  Indian  Territory,  they  were  unmo- 
lested, while  their  misdeeds  and  crimes  were  laid  at 
the  Indian's  door. 

Though  the  vices  of  civilization  have  left  their 
mark  upon  him,  though  the  unequal  struggle  has 
taxed  him  sorely,  he  remains  the  most  picturesque, 
the  most  heroic  figure  on  the  pages  of  American 
history. 

He  goes  down  to  succeeding  generations  without 
a  literature  and  with  no  history  save  that  recorded 
by  a  race  inimical  to  the  Indian  in  every  instinct  of 
his  being. 

Until  some  Cooper  shall  arise,  some  Longfellow 
with  a  "higher,  bolder  note,"  the  richest  heritage  of 

46 


Conflict 


American  literature  must  remain  unchronicled,  un- 
sung— blood  will  tell. 

The  Indian  is  passing. 

Yea,  merit  is  the  source  of  life, 
Through  the  fiercest  earthly  strife, 

Sterling  merit  brings  him  safe, — 

WJjgjjj  the  gods  such  a  boon  vouchsafes. 

Since  first  Africa  was  known, — 

Many  a  nation's  overthrown; 
In  oblivion's  sea  has  died, 

All  unfit  to  stem  the  tide. 

But  since  Africa  arose, 

Her  success  confounds  her  foes. 

Watchful,  faithful,  true  and  pure, 
She  must  evermore  endure. 

A  few  years  ago  at  the  United  States  Indian  In- 
dustrial School,  at  Carlisle,  Pa.,  Prof.  W.  H.  Coun- 
cill,  of  Normal,  Ala.,  speaking  on  the  "Negro  and  the 
South:  His  Work  and  Progress,"  in  part  said:  "Some 
years  ago,  in  the  city  of  Montgomery,  Ala.,  an  old 
aunty  was  walking  down  the  street  from  the  capitol. 
A  gust  of  wind  swept  her  bandanna  from  her  head 
out  into  the  sands  of  the  avenue.  A  manly  Anglo- 
Saxon  gentleman  recovered  the  handkerchief  and 
presented  it  in  a  most  courtly  manner  to  that  old 
Negro  woman.  That  gallant  man  was  Thomas  G. 
Jones,  then  Governor  of  Alabama.  I  am  not  afraid 
of  a  people  who  can  produce  men  like  that.  This  is 
only  reciprocal  kindness,  for  every  great  white  man 
and  white  woman  of  the  South,  was  taught  patience, 
love  and  politeness  by  the  thousands  of  black  mam- 
mies and  uncles  scattered  throughout  the  South  for 
two  hundred  years,  which  peculiar  conditions  pro- 

47 


Cfte    Conflict 


duced  a  manhood  and  womanhood,  both  black  and 
white,  unlike  any  other  manhood  and  womanhood  in 
the  world. 

AN  UNCROWNED  QUEEN. 

"The  Negro  woman  is,  indeed,  an  uncrowned 
queen  in  adversity,  and  lifts  her  head  far  above 
abuse,  slander  and  insult  as  the  lofty  mountain  peaks 
kissed  by  the  pure  airs  of  heaven  tower  above  the 
swamps  and  marshes  which  lie  at  their  base. 

"Our  female  element,  under  mother  influence,  at- 
tends school  and  church,  eschews  the  brothels,  stays 
at  home  and  works,  and,  to  our  shame,  is  the  back- 
bone of  the  Negro  race  to-day.  Were  it  not  for  the 
Negro  women  the  outlook  would  be  dark.  I  ani 
aware  of  the  breadth  of  my  speech  when  I  say  that 
the  world  has  never  furnished  a  higher  womanhood 
under  like  conditions  than  the  Negro  women  of  the 
South.  With  strong  appetites  and  passions,  penni- 
less, often  houseless,  practically  left  to  shift  alone, 
amid  debasing  influences  in  the  race  and  out,  exposed 
everywhere,  stumbling,  falling,  rising,  fleeing — she 
goes  on  washing,  cooking,  plowing,  sowing,  reaping 
— educating  her  children,  building  the  cottage,  erect- 
ing churches  and  schools — often  supporting  husband 
and  son — this  black  woman  deserves  the  admiration 
of  the  world. 

THE  NEGRO  TRUE  TO  HIS  COUNTRY. 

But  has  the  Negro  no  claim  upon  the  American 
government?  Is  there  a  section  which  has  not  felt 
the  warm  breath  of  his  loyalty?  Is  there  a  section 
which  has  not  been  bathed  in  the  sweat  of  his  brow  ? 
Is  there  a  section  that  has  not  felt  the  lifting  up  in- 
fluence of  his  toils?  Is  there  a  decade  in  history,  or 
a  spot  on  its  surface  which  has  not  been  hallowed 

48 


C6e    Conflict 


by  his  blood  ?  Has  the  East  ever  called  when  he  did 
not  answer?  It  was  Crispus  Attucks,  a  Negro,  who 
was  the  first  to  lay  down  his  life  in  the  Revolution- 
ary War.  Has  the  South  ever  called  when  he  did 
not  answer?  Was  he  not  with  Jackson  at  New  Or- 
leans? Did  he  not  there  pile  up  the  cotton  bales 
which  protected  the  Americans  from  British  lead? 
Has  the  North  called  when  he  did  not  answer?  Al- 
though he  would  not  follow  Nat  Turner,  although 
he  spurned  the  entreaties  of  John  Brown  to  rise  and 
slay  innocent  women  and  children,  still,  when  he  had 
a  legal  opportunity,  he  marched  two  hundred  thou- 
sand strong,  beneath  the  Stars  and  Stripes  for  his 
own  freedom  and  the  perpetuation  of  the  Union. 

Has  the  whole  nation  ever  called  when  he  did  not 
answer?  It  was  the  Tenth  Cavalry  under  gallant 
Wheeler  which  planted  the  American  standard  on 
the  heights  at  San  Juan,  crushed  out  the  Spanish 
Empire,  changed  the  map  of  the  world,  and  made  the 
crowned  heads  of  all  nations  seek  our  government. 

True,  through  it  all,  as  was  great  Toussaint  L'Ou- 
verture  who  provided  for  the  safety  of  his  master's 
family,  then  whipped  the  best  drilled  soldiers  of  the 
world,  gained  the  freedom  of  his  people  and  the  in- 
dependence of  his  beloved  isle. 

What  else  is  needed  to  establish  the  Negro's  title 
to  participate  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  rights  and  lib- 
erties of  this  great  country? 

Permit  this  interjection  to  say: 

That  despite  the  long,  honorable  record  of  faith- 
ful service  to  the  nation,  the  patriotism  and  hero- 
ism of  these  Negro  troopers  whose  valor  made  lus- 
trous more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century's  page,  in  the 
nation's  history — I  say  despite  this,  southern  preju- 
dice and  Negro  hate  at  Brownsville,  Texas,  gigan- 
tically conspired  to  blot  them  out,  but  through  an 

49 


C&e   Conflict 


overuling  Providence,  Theodore  Roosevelt,  as  the 
nation's  Chief  Executive,  whether  unwittingly  or  in- 
tentionally, did  by  a  stroke  of  his  pen  in  executive 
order  rescue  the  Negro  troops  from  a  bad  predica- 
ment— i.e.,  saved  them  from  courtmartial,  where 
enemies  among  white  men  in  and  out  of  the  Army 
would  have  had  wide  scope  to  have  done  them  incal- 
culable harm.  If  lies  would  in  this  case  have  accom- 
plished anything  there  would  have  been  no  lack  of 
liars  volunteering  to  testify  before  a  courtmartial. 
Hence  is  explained  the  attitude  of  some  publications 
and  public  persons  who  apparently  were  anxious  that 
the  Negroes  be  court-martialed  rather  than  that  they 
received  Roosevelt's  drastic  dismissal. 

The  position  of  this  class  of  solicitous  false  friends 
was  a  reversal  of  the  Irishman  who  was  on  trial  for 
stealing  a  watch.  He  said  to  his  lawyer :  "Faith,  see 
that  ye  get  me  out  o'  this." 

The  attorney  replied:  "I'll  see  you  get  justice, 
Pat."  AVhereupon  Pat  hurriedly  said:  "No,  faith, 
it  is  not  justice  I  want,  but  freedom."  He  knew  that 
justice  meant  conviction,  as  he  had  actually  stolen  the 
watch, 

By  this  act  of  Roosevelt's  the  negro  soldiers  were 
saved  from  their  false  friends.  Notwithstanding 
there  may  have  been,  and  doubtless  were,  many  hon- 
est lovers  of  fair  play  who  believed  that  Roosevelt 
did  wrong. 

But  I  see  "standing  in  the  shadow  the  Great 
Unknown,  keeping  watch  over  his  own" — yea,  may- 
be in  Roosevelt, — another  Daniel  come  to  judgment. 
At  any  rate,  Roosevelt  had  reason  to  remember  the 
valor  of  the  Negro  troopers  at  San  Juan  Hill,  making 
possible  his  continued  and  brilliant  career. 

Quoting  Prof.  Councill's  address,  "Every  Man's 
Friend" — I  know  of  no  good  element  in  human  char- 
So 


Conflict 


acter  which  is  not  found  in  the  Negro  race.  Indeed, 
the  Negro  has  been  placed  under  great  strains  of 
conscience,  and  taxed  more  severely  in  honor  and 
integrity  than  any  other  race  known  to  history.  The 
South  is  wild  in  its  praises  of  Negro  fidelity  in  the 
days  when  it  was  prostrate  in  civil  strife  and  its  de- 
fenceless women  and  children  committed  to  the  care 
of  the  Negro.  Is  there  a  single  case  of  treachery  or 
infidelity  recorded  against  us?  The  Northern  sol- 
dier could  always  trust  his  life  in  the  hands  of  a 
Negro  wherever  found.  Is  there  a  single  case  of 
treachery  or  infidelity  recorded  against  us  by  the 
North?  The  faithful  Negro  would  defend  and  feed 
"old  mistress,"  hide  the  cattle,  food  and  valuables  in 
the  hollows  and  in  the  thickets,  and  then  pilot  the 
Northern  army  by  these  hidden  goods  safely  through 
the  mountain  out  of  danger.  There  was  a  struggle 
between  his  sense  of  honor  and  his  desire  for  free- 
dom. He  would  rather  have  remained  in  bondage 
to  this  very  hour  than  to  have  violated  his  sacred 
honor.  Was  ever  human  nature  so  taxed  before? 
Do  the  pages  of  history  record  greater  fidelity  and 
heroism?  Those  same  noble  traits  of  character  are 
in  the  Negro  to-day.  But  some  men  will  not  see  them. 

LESSON  OF  THE  MONUMENTS. 

The  world's  monuments  tell  the  story  of  human 
struggle.  Where  man  has  shed  the  most  tears  and 
moistened  the  earth  with  his  blood,  there  the  monu- 
ments have  their  foundation  deepest. 

Where  man  has  toiled  and  struggled  for  man, 
there  the  foundations  of  the  monuments  are  broadest. 

Where  man  has  fought  fiercest  in  the  realm  of 
mind,  there  he  has  conquered  most  and  there  the 
monuments  rear  their  heads  highest  My  race  has 

5' 


Cfte   Conflict 


built  a  monument  in  America  which  Time  cannot 
efface.  As  long  as  man  loves  true  liberty,  as  long  as 
the  spirit  of  justice  finds  lodgment  in  the  human 
breast,  as  long  as  the  virtues  of  fidelity  and  patience 
live  among  men,  so  long  will  the  memory  of  the  Ne- 
gro race  in  America  live.  All  efforts  to  discount 
or  wipe  out  our  glorious  record  will  only  brighten  it 
and  cause  it  to  reflect  its  refulgent  glories  far  away 
across  the  ages  to  come. 

LESSON  FROM  THE  JEWS. 

Nothing  is  immortal  but  mind.  Nothing  survives 
but  spirit. 

Nothing  triumphs  but  soul.  The  Jewish  people 
are  the  fittest  people  in  the  annals  of  man.  They 
alone  live.  All  others  die.  All  nations,  whether  an- 
cient or  modern,  have  been  broken  and  shattered  in 
proportion  to  the  intensity  with  which  they  have 
thrown  themselves  against  this  spiritual  people. 

Oppress  them,  they  increase.  Persecute  them, 
they  flourish.  Discriminate  against  them,  they  grow 
rich.  They  go  right  on  growing  stronger  by  the 
cruelty  of  their  enemies.  Babylon  carried  them  into 
captivity.  The  Jew  is  here.  Where  is  Babylon? 
Egypt  beat  them  with  many  stripes,  while  they  built 
her  gigantic  pyramids,  and  her  enigmatical  sphinx. 
The  Jews  are  here,  the  pyramids  and  sphinx  which 
they  built  are  here.  Where  is  Egypt?  Rome  whipped 
the  Coloseum  out  of  their  muscles.  The  Coloseum  is 
here.  The  Jews  are  here.  Where  is  bloody  Rome? 
Such  will  be  the  history  of  spiritual  races  unto  the 
end — the  Negro  is  a  spiritual  race. 

WHAT  SOLUTION  MEANS. 

The  solution  of  the  race  problem  does  not  de- 
pend upon  votes.  Houses  and  lands  cannot  solve  it. 

52 


C&e    Con  f  Met 


Wealth  and  all  the  power,  ease  and  comfort  which 
it  brings  may  aggravate  it. 

The  race  question  can  be  settled  only  by  each  race 
understanding  its  relation  to  the  other. 

The  solution  of  the  race  question  does  not  mean 
social  equality  between  the  races,  but  it  does  mean 
fair  treatment  of  races  in  inferior  condition  by  races 
in  superior  condition. 

The  solution  of  the  race  problem  does  not  mean 
the  triumph  of  one  race  over  another.  It  does  not 
mean  the  measuring  of  industrial  and  literary  capaci- 
ties. It  does  not  mean  comparison  of  racial  possi- 
bilities, but  it  does  mean  peace  and  mutual  helpful- 
ness among  the  races. 

If  this  is  not  to  be  the  result  of  discussion  and 
present  educational  effort  our  civilization  is  a  fail- 
ure, and  our  Christianity  a  farce. 

NO  HISTORY. 

It  is  said  we  have  no  history.  Take  Egypt  from 
us,  if  you  please.  We  give  up  Hannibal.  We  will 
not  remember  noble  Attucks.  Wipe  from  history's 
page  great  Toussaint  L'Overture  and  grand  old 
Douglass,  and  still  the  Negro  has  done  enough  in  the 
last  forty  years  to  give  him  creditable  standing  in 
the  society  of  races,  and  to  place  his  name  in  letters 
of  gold  across  the  azure  blue  above. 

Although  we  may  be  considered  the  baby-race  in 
civilization  we  have  answered  every  test  which  your 
highest  civilization  has  applied.  In  science,  in  art, 
in  literature  your  best  critics  give  us  good  standing. 

In  invention  your  own  records  give  us  credit.  In 
music  and  song-  you  say  we  lead  the  world.  In  ora- 
tory you  place  us  with  your  best.  In  industrial 
walks  we  have  piled  up  a  billion  dollars  for  our- 

53 


Cfte   Conflict 


selves  and  a  billion  for  you  in  thirty-nine  years.  In 
the  military  your  government  records  place  us  first. 
In  Christian  fervor  and  generosity  we  have  taught 
the  world  lessons  of  self-denial,  patience  and  love, 
transcendentally  beautiful  and  glorious.  And  it  doth 
not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be. 

We  will  light  up  our  wonderful  imagination  and 
emotion  by  the  lamp  of  culture,  turn  our  imagination 
into  mechanical  and  philosophical  invention,  turn  our 
deep  emotion  into  music  and  poetry,  turn  our  con- 
stant stream  of  feeling  into  painting  and  sculptury. 
We  will  send  wonder  and  amazement  through  the 
scientific  and  literary  world. 

There  are  more  inventions  to  be  thought  out, 
higher  classes  of  forces  yet  undiscovered  to  be  har- 
nessed to  appliances,  more  worlds  to  be  discovered, 
more  of  God  to  be  brought  down  to  man.  If  the 
Negro  is  true  to  himself  he  may  be  God's  instrument 
to  bring  it  all  about. 

God  does  not  pay  large  prices  for  small  things. 

Two  millions  of  men  did  not  meet  forty  years  ago 
upon  the  battlefield,  bankrupt  the  nation  and  redden 
the  earth  with  their  blood  for  nothing. 

God  is  helping  the  Negro  to  rise  in  the  world." 

BLOOD  WILL  TELL. 

Dissatisfaction  with  one's  condition  is  a  virtue 
to  be  commended,  dissatisfaction  with  one's  self  is  a 
vice  to  be  deplored.  He  who  is  dissatisfied  with  his 
condition  will  strive  to  better  that  condition,  but  he 
who  is  dissatisfied  with  himself  is  lacking  in  courage 
to  face  the  demands  of  existence.  As  we  emphasize 
one  or  the  other  of  these  views  we  go  up  or  down; 
we  either  make  or  mar  ourselves.  The  failures,  the 
wrecks,  the  dispirited,  the  disheartened  in  life,  the 

54 


C6e    Conflict 


suicides,  are  all  people  who  hate  and  despise  them- 
selves, while,  on  the  other  hand,  those  who  succeed, 
who  triumph  over  opposing  environment,  who  rise 
to  place  and  power,  who  achieve  greatness,  who  shape 
and  mould  the  thought  of  others,  who  compel  the 
world's  support  and  applause,  are  those  who  are  not 
dissatisfied  with,  but  love  themselves,  and  are  dis- 
satisfied with,  and  hate  and  despise  their  condition  or 
opposing  environment. 

Be  a  man  black,  red  or  white,  whatever  is  in  him 
he  will  be.  Yes,  "blood  will  tell."  If  we  want  to 
we  can,  and  we  can  if  we  will.  We  may  want  to,  but 
cannot  if  we  will  not. 

I  know  not  my  mother,  and  never  knew  a  father. 
Some  think  me  a  Negro,  some  think  me  a  Mexican 
greaser,  some  think  me  a  Cuban,  some  think  me  a 
Filipino,  some  designate  me  an  Australian,  etc.  But, 
notwithstanding  I  do  know  that  Indian  blood  courses 
largely  through  my  veins,  whatever  be  the  other 
blood,  and  yet  I  cannot  but  deplore  the  Indians'  sad 
plight  and  give  credit  to,  and  admire,  the  surviving 
qualities  of  worth  as  demonstrated  in  the  Negro  race. 
Yes,  "blood  will  tell,"  so  be  it  whatever  blood  pre- 
dominating in  me,  I  do  know  that  there  is  some  kind 
of  blood  (if  it  be  but  one-sixteenth)  in  me  which 
causes  me  to  be  satisfied  with  myself.  It  makes  me 
love  myself.  I  am  proud  that  I  am  what  I  am,  but 
I  hate  and  despise  my  opposing  environment — the 
conditions  which  hamper  and  hem  me  in.  So,  by 
the  eternals,  I  have  sworn,  I  have  determined  to 
break  through! 

I  will  be  a  man  among  men,  either  living  or  dead. 
I  will  not  be  satisfied  with  any  condition  less  than 
that  which  is  the  right  and  due  to  a  man  and  a  gen- 
tleman. 

Thus  my  soul,  heart  and  brain — yea,  all  my  com- 
55 


Conflict 


bined  powers  even  as  a  giant  hand,  I  lay  it  hard  upon 
the  world  around  me,  compelling  where  coaxing  does 
not  avail  the  consideration  accorded  any  other  man. 

BLOOD  WILL  TELL. 

It  is  in  me;  I  have  done,  am  doing,  and  will  do 
until  I  die.  The  world  will  know  that  in  me  a  man 
lived.  I  will.  Even  of  there  is  one-sixteenth  of  Ne- 
gro blood  in  me,  I  will  be  a  man,  for  blood  will  tell, 
and  heroic  passions,  great  men  and  an  illustrious  an- 
cestry are  requisite  to  the  making  of  a  nation.  Thus 
I  see  in  the  Negro  a  worthy  example  to  emulate. 

Being  of  an  adventurous  nature,  with  a  love  for 
travel  and  romance,  and  being  a  free  man  born,  it 
was  and  is  my  prerogative  to  exercise  the  rights  of 
a  freeman  in  gratifying  my  desire  for  travel;  yet 
when  I  essayed  a  tour  of  the  Southern  United  States 
my  color  made  me  subject  to  Southern  caste  pro- 
scriptions ;  forcing  and  compelling  me  into  social  re- 
lations where,  despite  the  fact  that  I  had  sworn 
never  to  be  other  than  a  bachelor,  rather  than  the 
benedict  to  any  woman  of  a  race  the  virtue  of  which 
the  white  man  had  either  compromised  or  clouded 
with  suspicion.  I  say,  despite  my  determination, 
somehow  or  other,  I  contracted  marriage  with  a 
young  woman  of  mixed  Indian  and  African  blood. 

Her  father,  a  mixed  blood  Negro  of  prominence 
who  had  served  as  a  Senator  in  his  state,  as  Post- 
master of  his  town  and  as  Chairman  of  the  Republi- 
can Committee  of  his  county. 

Notwithstanding  this  Negro's  high  prominence,  a 
low,  degraded  white  man  had  despoiled  his  fair 
daughter.  She  was  a  mother  before  she  was  fifteen. 
I  married  her,  and  put  her  child  by  the  white  father 
into  a  boarding  college. 

I  preached  ambition,  the  hope  of  opportunity  and 
56 


€  Ij  e    Conflict 


a  better  life  and  future  to  both  the  mother  and  the 
growing-  daughter,  but  I  was  not  to  be  allowed  to 
make  the  best  I  could  in  getting  enjoyment  out  of 
the  sacrifice  which  I  had  made.  The  white  villain 
who  had  seduced  my  wife  before  I  knew  her  fol- 
lowed her,  sought  her  out,  and  in  my  absence  again 
caused  her  to  pawn  her  soul;  to  be  faithless  to  her 
marriage  vows. 

I  refused  to  believe  it  until  the  truth  was  so  plain 
I  was  compelled  to  admit  it.  And  still  I  clung  to  her 
whom  I  had  married.  I  tried  to  forget  her  guilt — 
her  unchastity.  I  travelled  her  around  the  world. 
I  lavished  wealth ;  the  fruits  of  my  toil  of  brain  and 
hand  upon  her.  I  introduced  her  among  persons  of 
honor  and  high  distinction  in  America,  and  nobility 
abroad.  I  caused  many  distinguished  attentions  to 
her  by  press  and  public,  but  the  effect  of  her  first 
fall  was  upon  her — we  grew  further  and  further 
apart,  until  finally  divorced  by  legal  decree. 

This  is  what  the  white  man  did  for  me — changed 
the  whole  course  of  my  life.  Blighted  my  most 
honorable  aims  and  highest  hopes. 

It  is  not  in  me  to  be  a  libertine,  and  again  I  de- 
termined to  never  marry  any  woman  unless  she 
either  be  virtuous  or  have  not  less  than  $10,000 
whatever  her  race. 

I  am  now  married  again.  My  wife  is  a  white 
woman,  a  woman  who  won  me  because  of  her  vir- 
tue and  her  love.  Yes,  she  loved  me.  I  loved  her. 
I  did  not  seek  to  despoil  and  seduce  her  as  white 
men  do  the  women  of  other  races.  No,  I  married 
her  honorably.  And  because  I  did  this  honorable  act 
a  white  mob  of  hoodlums  assailed  my  residence  and 
place  of  business,  threatened  my  peace  and  life  and 
made  me  an  exile  among  strangers. 

The  white  man  in  the  United  States  of  America 

57 


€l)e    Conflict 


has  so  robbed,  plundered  and  otherwise  exploited 
the  Negro — they  have  so  lived  upon  them  in  print,  on 
platform,  and  in  church  pulpit  before  all  the  world. 
They  have  caricatured,  misrepresented  and  distorted 
the  truth  about  these  people  till  now  that  the  Negroes 
by  their  endeavor  and  achievement  are  proving  them 
as  the  greatest  historical  liars — they  as  a  last  desper- 
ate resort  turn  to  lynching,  burning,  open  murder, 
incitement  to  riot,  and  all  manner  of  barbarities,  hop- 
ing thus  to  prevent  the  human  part  of  the  world 
from  being  undeceived. 

They  charge  the  Negro  with  inferiority,  while  their 
own  criminal  brutality  proves  their  inferiority,  while 
the  Negroes'  superior  virtue  is  seen  in  his  magnani- 
mous patience  and  irresistible  progress  against  every 
despicable  hindrance  the  whites  can  impose. 

A  VAMPIRE  UPON  THE  NATION'S 
OTHER  HALF. 

or  the  South's  only,  and  a  deadly  enemy,  and  the 
nation's  worst  foe.  In  any  community  those  who 
industriously  labor  as  wealth-producers  are  certainly 
not  a  hindrance,  but  a  help  to  the  support  of  that 
community,  while  those  who  "neither  toil  nor  spin," 
but  with  lusty  throat  and  blatant  mouth  stir  up  racial 
strife  by  appeals  to  brute  passions,  fomenting  pre- 
judice, and  inciting  mobs,  threatening  life  and  dis- 
turbing the  peace  and  quiet  of  others,  that  through 
it  they  may  obtain  office  to  thereby  enrich  them- 
selves, are  as  certainly  pariatic  vampires  upon  that 
community;  sucking  its  life  blood,  throttling  pro- 
gress, and  sowing  a  withering  desolation  more  dis- 
mal than  Sodom. 

Such  men  at  the  South  are  vampires  upon  the  na- 
tion's other  half.  They  are  the  South's  only,  and  a 
deadly  enemy,  and  the  nation's  worst  foe.  The 

58 


€  6  e   Conflict 


Southern  people  are  generally  a  noble  people,  goo«- 
at  heart,  but  the  curse  to  them  and  their  gloriously 
beautiful  Eden-like  land  is  the  unrestrained  yelping, 
and  howlings  of  their  Tilmans,  Dixons,  Vardamans, 
Hefflins,  Germans,  Smiths,  Davis's,  Slaydens  and 
the  wholesale  tribe  of  other  revenue-seeking  dema- 
gogues who,  to  boost  themselves  into  power,  raise  a 
hue  and  cry.  Others  hearing  it,  and  wishing  to  ap- 
pear as  not  approving  the  inhuman  instinctive  make- 
up of  the  Negro  as  they  believe  it  to  be  as  pictured 
by  the  unprincipled  politicians,  so  they  join  in  the 
yelling  without  taking  the  trouble  to  inform  them- 
selves. 

Then  there  are  a  considerable  number  of  low,  vic- 
ious, worthless,  "ne'er-do-well"  class  of  poor,  white 
trash,  typical  of  a  class  to  be  found  in  every  com- 
munity and  of  every  race.  Such  persons  naturally 
envy  those  whose  enterprise  and  endeavor  place  them 
in  fortunate  circumstances,  and  welcome  the  op- 
portunity to  add  emphasis  to  the  firebrand  utter- 
ances of  the  demagogue,  and  in  these  outbreaks  of 
turbulence  the  thief,  thug  and  corner  loafer  come  to 
the  front  and  loot  right  and  left ;  sparing  none  where 
opportunity  favors  them  to  plunder,  and  at  times  to 
even  burn  and  murder — thus  to  augment  a  reign  of 
terror,  the  better  enabling  them  to  ply  their  nefarious 
thievery  undetected. 

And  since,  in  the  nature  of  things,  there  are  a 
large  number,  the  great  majority  who  do  not  feel 
to  jeopardize  their  interest  or  hazard  themselves 
amid  the  howlings  and  yelpings  of  the  demagogue, 
the  thug,  the  thief,  the  hoodlum  and  such  like  in  a 
bloody  crusade  for  spoil,  so,  since  the  voice  of 
these  is  heard  the  loudest,  it  seems  all  is  going  their 
way. 

Hence,  the  cause  of  right  and  justice  suffers;  not 
59 


Cfje    Conflict 


because  there  is  not  a  majority  of  good  men  and 
women  in  our  land,  only  that  these  good  men  and 
women  have  not  as  they  ought  to  interest  themselves 
as  their  "brother's  keeper"  to  call  a  halt  to  iniquity 
in  the  land.  But  praises  be  given  that  there  is  now 
beginning  an  awakening — yea,  righteousness  must 
and  will  prevail — God  is  not  dead. 

Here  again  I  quote  "The  Mulatto  Negro  a  Yellow 
Peril":  "Largely  speaking,  there  are  three  classes  of 
Northerners  in  their  attitude  toward  the  Negro. 
There  is  a  small,  select  cult,  who  preach  the  doctrine 
of  full  political  and  social  equality  and  boldly  advo- 
cate miscegenation  as  the  only  Christian  and  ra- 
tional solution  There  is,  of  course,  no  'Negro  peril' 
for  this  class  anywhere.  There  is  another  class,  the 
antipodes  of  this  one,  in  whom  Caucasian  exclusive- 
ness  is  as  strongly  developed  as  in  the  proudest  South- 
erner, and  who  answers  to  President  Eliot's  descrip- 
tion of  being  even  more  averse  to  personal  contact 
with  the  Negro.  This  class  of  Northerners  are  not 
appeased  by  the  colored  man's  educational  veneer- 
ing, nor  by  his  acquisition  of  wealth  and  official 
honors,  nor  yet  by  his  light  complexion.  They  are 
less  impressed  by  the  meretricious  show  of  Negro 
progress  than  many  Southerners,  because  with  more 
discernment  they  have  thought  the  thing  out  for 
themselves  independently  of  their  environment.  They 
hold  that  the  qualities  of  the  blood  go  deeper  than 
any  mere  surface-show  of  book  learning  or  pious 
phraseology;  that  'reversion  to  type'  is  a  scientific 
principle."  I  here  recommend  the  writer  and  all  so- 
called  and  self-constituted  historians  and  scientists 
who  have  delighted  to  juggle  the  facts  of  history 
that  they  read  with  honest  eyes  the  brilliant  history 
of  Carthage  for  more  than  700  years,  of  Hasdrubal, 
of  Hamilcar  and  of  Hannibal.  Remember  that  the 

60 


Cfje    Conflict 


Roman  Senate  conferred  not  the  title  of  Cartha- 
genus,  but  Africanus  upon  Scipio — thus  attesting  the 
fact  that  the  Carthagenians  were  Africans. 

Read  of  Egypt,  in  the  northern  part  of  Africa, 
founded  by  the  great  Miseraim,  the  descendant  of 
Ham,  Kam  or  Chem,  the  root  of  chemistry — Egypt, 
the  cradle  of  learning,  of  science  and  art,  from 
whence  light  emanated  and  as  a  torch  in  the  hands  of 
men  and  women  it  was  borne  around  the  world, 
banishing  ignorance  from  darkened  minds  at  a  time 
when  the  descendants  of  Shem  and  Japhet  were 
dwelling  in  caves,  covering  themselves  with  the 
skins  of  wild  animals  and  subsisting  upon  roots  and 
herbs.  Memnon  in  Egypt  invented  letters.  Thales 
traveled  in  Egypt,  returned  to  Greece,  the  place  of 
his  nativity,  and  calculated  eclipses  and  made  other 
astronomical  reckonings  more  than  600  B.C. 

It  cannot  be  wisely  contended  that  a  civilization 
the  like  of  that  in  Egypt  did  not  affect  the  entire 
African  continent.  As  a  fact,  travel  in  Africa  to- 
day is  bringing  to  light  the  truth  of  the  ancient 
greatness  of  the  African  continent  by  and  through 
its  people  centuries  ago.  The  African,  the  Negro 
parent  root,  lives  to-day.  Where  are  the  Huns,  the 
Celts,  the  Gauls  and  other  races  who  live  only  in 
history  ?  A  certain  class  of  white  writers  and  speak- 
ers would  if  they  could  blot  all  this  out  if  they 
could  not  twist  and  distort  it  to  suit  their  own 
prejudiced,  biased  brains. 

The  writer  further  says :  "They  stand  by  the  bio- 
logical axiom  that  "the  man  history  is  the  race  his- 
tory." Yes,  and  I  say:  and  vice  versa.  Continuing 
she  writes:  "and  they  know  the  proper  place  to 
study  the  latter  is  where  the  racial  tendencies  have 
free  play,  unrestrained  by  the  presence  of  the  domi- 
nant race.  Therefore  for  the  real  Negro  character- 

61 


Cbe   Conflict 


istics  these  turn  not  to  the  cities  of  Europe  and  con- 
tinental United  States,  where  he  is  constantly  copy- 
ing and  leaning  upon  the  white  man,  but  to  the  jun- 
gles of  Africa  and  to  the  black  republics  which  he 
has  established  for  himself,  where  he  may  work  his 
own  sweet  will  without  let  or  hindrance  from 
others." 

Nowhere  is  he  permitted  to  do  this.  Whites  en- 
deavor to  exploit  him,  and  to  this  end  diplomatically 
intermeddle  with  him  and  endeavor  to  discredit  him 
everywhere — even  as  you  are  doing.  But  what  of 
ancient  Egypt  as  compared  with  the  world  both  an- 
cient and  in  modern  times?  What  of  Liberia  and 
of  Abyssinia  despite  their  environment? 

What  of  Hayti  as  compared  with  other,  and  white 
governments  in  South  and  Central  America? 

There  was  a  time  when  the  great  government  of 
these  United  States  of  America  wanted  a  coaling 
station  as  a  naval  base  at  Mole  St.  Nicholas  in  Hayti, 
but  being  unable  to  secure  such  a  foothold  on  Hay- 
tian  territory  under  the  then  Haytian  administration ; 
somehow  or  other  a  revolution  ensued  down  there, 
and  some  ambitious  Negroes,  even  as  like  white  peo- 
ples, came  to  the  front,  through  a  revolution,  to  the 
overthrow  of  the  Negro  Haytian  patriot  who  could 
not  be  used  to  foster  the  designs  against  his  govern- 
ment by  those  who  to  serve  their  own  ends  would 
bathe  the  weaker  nations  in  blood. 

Why  did  Frederick  Douglass  resign  as  Minister 
to  Hayti  ?  Who  knows  ?  What  of  Capriano  Castro, 
Venezuela  and  the  United  States  of  America  ?  What 
of  Panama,  Colombia  and  the  United  States  of 
America  when  this  good  and  righteous  government 
wanted  a  right  of  way  for  a  link  of  the  Atlantic  with 
the  Pacific  Ocean,  and  more  recently  the  complica- 
tions between  Nicaragua,  the  United  States  and  the 

62 


C6e   Conflict 


ever  ready  tool — the  ambitious,  aspirant  hungry  for 
place  and  power  in  close  juxtaposition?  Oh,  you 
Monroe  Doctrine,  you  are  great,  and  no  doubt 
about  it,  but  the  world  is  watching  you.  What  would 
your  Uncle  Sammy  do  if  some  foreign  "galoot" 
should  have  the  "gall"  to  come  here  and  even  attempt 
to  start  a  filibuster  movement  against  his  government 
at  Washington? 

She  writes:  "And  these  Northern  students  of  the 
race  problem  along  purely  scientific  lines  find  the 
racial  traits  therein  revealed  so  little  to  their  liking 
that  they  have  no  mind  to  take  chances  on  them  in 
their  own  families — not  even  for  the  "eighth  move." 
These  will  fight  most  strenuously  the  new  Negro  peril 
at  the  north,  and  in  so  doing  they  will  merit  the  sym- 
pathy of  the  civilized  world,  for  they  are  fighting 
foes  within  and  without — and,  as  usual,  the  worst 
are  those  of  their  own  household. 

Between  the  two  extremes  of  Northern  opinion 
on  this  question  there  is  another  and  by  far  the  most 
numerous  class  at  the  north,  who  wish  well  to  the 
Negro  in  a  vague  and  general  sort  of  way,  who  would 
like  to  "help"  him  at  long  range,  who  are  full  of 
beneficent  platitudes  anent  the  "man  and  brother," 
but  whose  regard  for  him  rests  partly  on  a  miscon- 
ception of  his  real  nature  and  partly  on  a  sense  of 
security  from  him  in  any  event.  With  the  "coming 
of  more  Negroes"  this  class  will  have  an  opportunity 
of  applying  to  themselves  the  theories  they  have  so 
long  believed  applicable  at  the  South,  with  the  pos- 
sible result  of  a  better  understanding  of  their  South- 
ern neighbors.  It  is  a  favorite  argument  with  this 
class  that  the  South's  policy  of  making  the  Negro 
subordinate,  of  drawing  the  color  line  as  rigidly 
against  the  educated  and  virtuous  as  against  the  illit- 

63 


Cfu    Con  f  iict 


erate  and  depraved,  is  not  calculated  to  foster  the 
Negro's  self  respect  nor  conducive  to  a  very  high 
racial  development — allowing  that  he  is  capable  of 
such  development — and  this  is  indisputably  correct. 

There  is  absolutely  no  flaw  in  our  Northern 
friends'  reasoning  on  this  point,  and  if  the  Negro's 
advancement  were  the  sole  thing  to  be  considered, 
the  South's  "color  line"  policy  should  receive  unmiti- 
gated condemnation. 

But  there  is  another  aspect  of  the  question  on 
which  the  Northern  mind  does  not  appear  to  reason 
quite  so  clearly.  It  fails  to  see  the  logical  connection 
between  political  equality  and  social  equality  in  a 
free  republic,  and  particularly  the  advocates  of  social 
equality,  for  the  most  deserving  Negroes  deny  that 
this  is  the  natural  precursor  of  miscegenation.  They 
take  sharp  issue  with  the  statement  of  Professor 
Smith  of  Tulane  University  (New  Orleans)  in  his 
recent  book,  "The  Color  Line:  A  Brief  in  Behalf 
of  the  Unborn" — 

"If  we  sit  with  the  Negroes  at  our  tables,  if  we 
entertain  them  as  our  guest  and  social  equals,  if  we 
disregard  the  color  line  in  all  other  relations,  is  it 
possible  to  maintain  it  fixedly  in  the  social  relation, 
in  the  marriage  of  our  sons  and  daughters,  in  the 
propagation  of  our  species  ?  Unquestionably,  No ! 

It  is  as  certain  as  the  rising  of  to-morrow's  sun 
that  once  the  middle  wall  of  partition  is  broken  down, 
the  mingling  of  the  tides  of  life  would  begin  instant- 
ly and  proceed  steadily.  If  the  race  barrier  be  re- 
moved and  their  individual  standard  of  personal  ex- 
cellence be  established,  the  twilight  of  this  century 
will  gather  upon  a  nation  hopelessly  sinking  in  the 
mire  of  mongrelism."  As  every  one  knows,  "The  mid- 
dle wall  of  social  partition"  has  never  been  so  solidly 
maintained  in  the  North  as  in  the  South,  and  the 

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C6e   Conflict 


greater  mongrelism  as  set  forth  in  the  census  records 
cited  in  this  article  seems  to  uphold  Professor 
Smith's  position  rather  than  that  of  the  Negrophiles 
However,  the  final  vindication  of  the  one  or  the 
other  will  come  with  the  increase  of  the  Negro  popu- 
lation at  the  North,  and  the  opportunity  to  witness 
the  effect  of  the  different  Negro  policies  when  some- 
thing like  an  equality  of  numbers  obtain  between  the 
sections.  If  it  should  happen,  for  instance,  that  cer- 
tain counties  of  Massachusetts  instead  of  Mississippi 
should  register  eight  Negroes  to  one  white  citizen  it 
will  be  interesting  to  watch  the  working  of  the  "free 
ballot  and  fair  count"  system  in  the  home  of  its  chief 
apostles." 

My  strictures  on  this  section  are  the  same  as  upon 
that  preceding  this,  as  well  as  all  I  say  in  this  book, 
and  the  Negro  himself,  when  viewed  by  humane  eyes, 
unprejudiced,  everywhere  answers  this,  "Blood  Will 
Tell."  Yea,  to  quote  that  true  and  beautiful  poem 
by  Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox : 

"However  the  battle  is  ended, 

Though  proudly  the  victor  comes 
With  fluttering  flags  and  prancing  nags 

And  echoing  roll  of  drums, 
Still  truth  proclaims  this  motto 

In  letters  of  living  light — 
No  question  is  ever  settled 

Until  it  is  settled  right. 

"Though  the  heel  of  the  strong  oppressor 

May  grind  the  weak  in  the  dust, 
And  the  voice  of  fame  with  one  acclaim 
May  call  him  great  and  just, 

65 


Cfte   Conflict 


Let  those  who  applaud  take  warning 

And  keep  this  motto  in  sight — 
No  question  is  ever  settled 

Until  it  is  settled  right." 

"I  know  as  my  life  grows  older 

And  mine  eyes  have  clearer  light, 
That  under  each  rank  wrong  somewhere 
There  lies  the  root  of  right." 

Here  I  take  up  the  sixth  section :  "One  fact  which 
is  usually  ignored  by  the  Negro-rights'  agitators,  and 
clamorers  tor  "equality  of  opportunity,"  must  com- 
mend itself  to  every  thoughtful  intelligence:  wher- 
ever the  Negro  exists  in  sufficient  numbers  to  make 
his  presence  felt  in  any  community,  in  direct  pro- 
portion as  his  privileges  increase  is  the  racial  feel- 
ing against  him  intensified."  Sure,  competition  be- 
gets rivalry  anywhere — among  all  peoples,  but  rash 
indeed  are  those,  and  insanely  so,  who  do  not  realize 
that  the  Negroes  in  this  country  are  industrial  fac- 
tors and  have  got  to  be  so  considered  in  any  eco- 
nomic scheme  embracing  capital  and  labor  if  this 
nation  is  to  continue  a  free  and  prosperous  Republic. 

The  truth  is,  that  "they  whom  the  gods  would  de- 
istroy  they  first  make  mad,"  was  never  more  mani- 
fest than  is  seen  in  the  attempt  being  made  in  the 
United  States  of  America  to  inaugurate  an  indus- 
trial policy  eliminating  the  Negro. 

Facing  the  fact  that  there  are  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  Negroes  in  this  country  who  are  not  only 
willing  and  capable,  but  anxious  to  do  the  labor  of 
the  land  in  any  line  of  industry  if  only  given  a 
chance,  paid  fair  wages  and  treated  humanely,  it  is 
with  commiseration  and  pity  that  I  contemplate  the 
future  of  this  country  when  I  see  the  inhumanity  of 

66 


C&e    Conflict 


a  class  of  white  men  in  the  United  States  of  America 
giving  cause  for  the  following  editorial  as  appeared 
September  I9th,  1907,  in  the  Philadelphia,  Pa., 
Press; 

"Attorney  General  Bonapart's  opinion  on  state  as- 
sisted immigration  as  affected  by  the  immigration  act 
passed  by  the  Congress  just  adjourned  will  be  a  very 
serious  disappointment  to  Senator  Tillman  and  other 
Southern  Senators.  Led  by  the  Senator  from  South 
Carolina,  they  objected  to  the  prohibition  of  assisted 
immigration.  The  new  legislation  vitally  changed 
the  law.  Before  assisted  immigration  was  prohibited 
if  the  assistance  was  based  on  a  contract  for  future 
labor  at  an  agreed  wage.  The  new  legislation  cuts 
off  all  assisted  immigration  whatever. 

"Senator  Tillman  anxiously  asked  if  this  cut  off 
aid  from  the  State  Bureaus  of  Immigration.  Htf 
was  assured  it  did  not.  The  law,  however,  was 
clear.  Congress  has  the  explicit  power  to  cut  off 
any  assisted  immigration.  In  the  new  immigration 
act  it  has  exercised  it. 

"The  Southern  States  are  desirous  of  white  immi- 
gration. South  Carolina,  Louisiana  and  Texas  have 
active  commissioners  ready  to  pay  the  passage  of 
immigrants.  Charleston,  New  Orleans  and  Galve- 
ston  were  by  special  acts  in  the  Congress  just  ad- 
journed made  immigration  stations.  All  assisted 
immigration,  however,  has  its  perils  normal  immi- 
gration takes  the  adventurous,  efficient  and  enter- 
prising. Assisted  immigration  attracts  the  reverse. 

"Steamship  companies  are  already  doing  enough 
to  bring  in  assisted  immigration  under  one  disguise 
and  another.  One  investigation  and  some  scandal 
have  grown  out  of  one  state  assisted  colony  of  im- 
migrants. Others  may  follow.  States  which  permit 
peonage,  the  chain  gang  and  the  use  of  various  means 

67 


Cfje    Conflict 


to  keep  men  at  work,  including  in  some  counties  the 
shotgun  and  the  lash,  are  liable  to  have  employers 
ready  to  apply  these  means  to  foreign  immigrants, 
brought  over  under  contract  and  set  to  work  in 
isolated  regions.  Immigration  needs  to  be  sifted,  and 
there  is  no  better  test  than  the  stringent  requirements 
that  an  immigrant  shall  have  the  thrift  and  initiative 
to  bring  himself  here,  without  any  aid  whatever, 
State  or  individual." 

This  editorial  rings  clear  and  right,  but  there  is 
absolutely  no  earthly  reason  at  all  for  this  maD  doG 
backwards  business.  But  read  this: 

"Washington,  D.  C,  Sept.  i8th,  1907. — More  than 
a  quarter  of  a  million  places  of  employment  are 
open  for  the  thousands  of  aliens  who  are  pouring 
into  the  United  States,  according  to  a  report  to-day 
by  Terence  V.  Powderly,  chief  of  the  division  of 
information  of  the  Bureau  of  Immigration,  to  Sec- 
retary Straus,  of  the  Department  of  Commerce  and 
Labor.  Although  the  bureau  has  been  in  existence 
only  two  months,  it  already  has  on  file  information 
showing  that  places  can  be  provided  for  256,400 
men,  women  and  children  at  wages  ranging  from 
$3.00  a  week  to  $3.50  a  day. 

"Individual  employers  will  place  immediately  1,395 
at  wages  ranging  from  $1.25  to  $3.00  a  day. 

"Commissioners  of  Labor  and  State  Boards  of 
Agriculture  report  that  84,100  aliens  can  be 
given  employment  at  wages  ranging  from  $18.00  per 
month  to  $3.00  per  day. 

"The  Commissioners  of  Agriculture  of  three 
States  say  that  1,020,000  settlers  are  needed  in  their 
States. 

"It  is  proposed  to  distribute  this  information  in 
circulars  and  pamphlets  printed  in  several  languages 
through  steamship  agencies  abroad,  on  vessels  com- 

68 


Cbe    Conflict 


ing  into  this  country  carrying  aliens,  through  foreign 
missions  and  societies  at  various  European  ports  and 
at  the  steamship  docks  and  immigration  stations  at 
Boston,  Philadelphia,  New  York  and  Baltimore  and 
through  the  public  press. 

"It  is  proposed  also  to  have  well  qualified  men  and 
women  to  travel  on  steamships  to  inform  incoming 
aliens  of  what  they  may  expect  on  arrival  in  the 
United  States.  Through  these  agents,  it  is  expected 
to  check  any  attempted  violations  of  the  alien  con- 
tract labor  law." 

Now,  wouldn't  the  mummies  save  this  nation? 

Why  all  this  commotion — why  this  fustin  and 
feathers  ? 

Could  not  the  government  be  in  better  business  if 
it  were  to  busy  the  Department  of  Commerce  and 
Labor  in  trying  to  equalize  the  distribution  of  the 
American  citizen  laborers  right  here  at  home,  both 
whites  and  Negroes,  instead  of  being  so  solicitous 
about  the  foreigner  and  the  alien? 

Here  and  now  I  speak  a  prophecy,  that  in  this 
policy  the  nation  is  "sowing  to  the  winds  to  reap 
the  whirlwind." 

In  my  book  to  follow  this  I  shall  have  more  to 
say  upon  this  particular  subject. 

Again  I  quote  the  "Mulatto  Negro,  the  Yellow 
Peril" :  "This  is  strikingly  illustrated  in  the  District 
of  Columbia,  where  there  are  more  Negroes  (ninety 
thousand)  than  in  any  single  community  North  or 
South,  and  where  thev  are  at  the  same  time  under 
fewer  restrictions.  Barring  the  self-assertiveness 
which  this  policy  naturally  engenders  in  them,  the 
Washington  Negroes  are  as  well-behaved  as  the  most, 
and  yet  nowhere  in  the  country  is  racial  antagonism 
so  acute,  and  this  without  respect  to  the  sectional 
leanings  of  the  whites.  Nothing  is  more  common 

69 


Clje    Conflict 


than  to  hear  citizens  from  the  Northeast  or  North- 
west, where  Negroes  are  scarce,  depose :  "We  thought 
we  had  a  good  deal  of  sympathy  for  Negroes  before 
we  came  to  Washington ;"  or  to  hear  them  informing 
newcomers  from  those  regions:  "You  have  only  to 
come  to  Washington  to  find  out  your  real  sentiments 
about  the  Negroes."  And  racial  antagonism  is  a 
factor  to  be  reckoned  with.  Right  or  wrong,  it  in- 
sists on  space  to  exist  as  much  as  the  roots  of  a  tree. 
You  cannot  reason  it  away,  nor  preach  it  out  of 
countenance,  nor  annul  it  by  legislative  enactment, 
and  any  scheme  for  the  amelioration  or  uplifting  of 
the  Negro  which  ignores  this  as  a  complication  must 
surely  fall  to  the  ground.  Few  people  have  the 
honesty  and  the  fearlessness  to  tell  the  Negro  that 
only  by  his  consenting  to  remain  the  "under  dog  in 
this  government  can  he  hope  to  continue  a  peaceful 
residence  under  it;  and  yet  this  is  precisely  what 
every  honest  thinker,  white  or  black,  knows  to  be 
the  case.  The  colored  teachers  who  have  the  courage 
to  proclaim  this  truth  have  usually  paid  the  penalty 
of  their  rashness  in  the  mob  vengeance  of  their  irate 
followers." 

Concluding  this  section  the  writer  reasons  like  a 
baby,  ignoring  the  fact  that  a  race  of  people  that 
could  furnish  more  than  two  hundred  thousand  he- 
roes to  offer  up  their  lives  for  the  Stars  and  Stripes 
that  this  nation  might  live  will  surely  not  be  lacking 
in  courage  if  the  time  should  ever  come  to  fight  to 
retain  the  liberty  they  have  once  breathed — even 
such  as  it  is. 

She  either  ignores  or  forgets  the  Negro's  career 
as  a  soldier  and  a  fighter  campaigning  in  the  West, 
at  San  Juan  Hill,  at  El  Caney  and  in  the  Philippines, 
not  to  mention  the  thousands  of  courageous  hearts 

70 


Cfje    Conflict 


and  cultured  minds  to  inspire,  lead  and  direct,  these 
in  the  ranks  of  the  Negro  and  among  his  friends 
amid  every  race  throughout  the  world. 

The  Negro  fully  realizes  that  "To  wealth  there  is 
no  royal  route: 

'Tis  written  with  a  sigh, 

The  universal  rule  must  be, 

"Root,  hog  or  die."     And  he's   er-rootin' — 

live  or  die; 
His  children  will  profit  by  and  by. 

This  Negro  question  is  the  nation's  problem,  and 
it  must  be  solved  two  of  four  ways,  either  social  and 
religious,  or  political  and  industrial;  and  if  to  serf- 
dom the  Negro  is  reduced,  then  will  the  wage  stand- 
ard of  the  white  man  go  down.  Then  our  Republic 
is  gone.  In  the  language  of  the  immortal  Lincoln, 
"This  nation  cannot  exist  half  slave  and  half  free." 

Again  I  say: 

"Laws  of  changeless  justice  binds 
Oppresser  with  oppressed, 
And  close  as  sin  and  suffering  joined 
We  march  to  fate  abreast." 

Will  this  nation  commit  the  great  crime  of  aban- 
doning the  Negro  to  the  opulent,  rapacious  greed  and 
the  unequal  struggle  to  pursue  peace,  life  and  liberty 
against  the  combined  wealth,  intelligence  and  crafty, 
conscienceless  statecraft  of  the  Southern  white  man  ? 
No,  I  cannot  believe  it. 

Writing  in  the  January,  1907,  "American  Maga- 
zine," Dr.  Washington  Gladden  chose  for  his  sub- 
ject "The  Negro  Crisis."  Quoting  from  that  article, 
he  says :  "Governor  Hoke  Smith  of  Georgia  declares 

71 


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that  the  proper  position  of  the  Negro  in  the  nation  is 
not  that  of  a  citizen,  but  that  of  a  ward,  a  dependent 
— the  same  position  as  that  of  the  Indian.  He  for- 
gets or  ignores  the  fact  that  the  attempt  to  keep  the 
Indian  in  this  relation  has  brought  blight  to  the  In- 
dian and  a  perennial  curse  to  every  agency  of  the 
government  that  has  tried  to  deal  with  him.  But,  of 
course,  Governor  Hoke  Smith  agrees  with  Governor 
Vardaman  in  advocating  the  repeal  of  the  Fourteenth 
and  Fifteenth  Amendments,  for  they  precisely  define 
the  position  of  the  Negro  in  the  nation,  and  declare 
that  he  is  not  a  ward  nor  a  subject,  but  a  citizen. 

These  recent  utterances  of  representative  men  show 
that  the  movement  described  by  Mr.  Schurz  to  re- 
duce the  Negroes  to  a  permanent  condition  of  serf- 
dom is  well  under  way. 

MAKING  SLAVES  OF  MEN. 

Will  this  movement  be  successful  ?  I  do  not  think 
so.  The  Negroes  have  submitted,  without  much  re- 
sistance, to  practical  political  disfranchisement,  but 
when  it  becomes  evident  that  their  intellectual  and 
economic  opportunity  is  limited  or  threatened,  there 
is  likely  to  be  serious  trouble.  Mr.  Schurz  has  a 
few  sober  words  on  this  subject  which  ought  to  be 
pondered:  "To  keep  a  race  in  slavery  that  had  been 
in  that  condition  for  many  generations,  as  was  done 
before  the  Civil  War,  is  one  thing,  comparatively 
easy ;  but  to  reduce  that  race  to  slavery  or  something 
like  it,  after  it  has  been  free  for  half  a  century  (and 
after,  we  might  add,  it  has  increased  from  four  to 
nine  millions),  is  quite  another  thing — nobody  knows, 
how  difficult  and  dangerous." 

This  campaign  of  subjugation  into  which  the  gov- 
ernors of  Mississippi  and  Georgia  propose  to  lea(| 

72 


the  Southern  whites  will  be  found  to  be  an  ardu- 
ous one. 

The  white  population  of  the  Southern  tier  of 
States  from  Texas  to  North  Carolina  number 
6,622,281 ;  the  Negro  population  of  those  States  num- 
bers 5,483,460. 

The  whites,  of  course,  are  far  stronger,  and  could 
easily  overpower  the  Negroes  in  a  race  war;  but  the 
Negroes  are  numerous  enough  to  cause  them  a  great 
deal  of  trouble.  It  is  not  likely  that  any  general 
conflict  would  be  precipitated;  but  Senator  Tillman's 
prediction  that  race  struggles  of  a  very  bitter  nature 
are  likely  to  be  frequent  and  continuous  in  the  South 
is  not  without  probability. 

If  any  such  policy  as  that  which  the  two  governors 
are  advocating  should  be  generally  adopted  through 
the  South,  that  result  may  be  confidently  predicted. 
Allow  me  to  interject  here  to  remark  that  the  South 
has  already  seen  the  hand-writing  on  the  wall,  and 
is  thus  busy  through  her  emissaries  (Tillman,  Varda- 
man,  Dixon,  Graves,  Smith,  Swanson,  Hefflin  and 
the  author  of  "The  Mulatto  Negro:  A  Yellow 
Peril"),  turning  earth  and  hell  upside  down  in  an 
endeavor  to  corrupt  the  North  and  the  world  to  ac- 
quiesce, if  not  be  a  partner,  to  the  iniquitous  piece  of 
infamy  which  it  hopes  to  finally  consummate;  but, 
hear  Dr.  Gladden  further:  "In  their,  the  Negroes', 
resistance  to  this  policy,  which  undertakes  to  shut 
them  out  from  the  opportunities  of  manhood,  the  Ne- 
groes would  have  the  sympathy  of  the  whole  civil- 
ized world.  That  they  would  have  the  sympathy  of 
the  vast  majority  of  the  white  people  of  the  United 
States  can  hardly  admit  of  a  doubt." 

In  my  use  of  the  word  South  in  a  general  sense, 
I  wish  not  to  be  understood  as  referring  to  the  many 
good  and  noble  people  in  that  section.  I  mean  the 

73 


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reactionaries,  those  loud  mouthed  demagogues  who 
assume  to  speak  for  the  people  of  that  section.  Quot- 
ing Dr.  Gladden  again,  he  says:  "I  have  spoken  of 
this  policy  of  subjugation  and  repression  as  the  pol- 
icy of  the  reactionaries  of  the  South.  But  I  wish 
now  to  make  it  very  plain  that  the  people  of  the 
South  are  not  all  reactionaries.  I  have  admitted  that 
a  good  many  people  at  the  North  sympathize  with 
this  policy,  and  I  rejoice  in  believing  that  a  good 
many  people  at  the  South  utterly  abhor  it." 

That  other  movement  which  Mr.  Schurz  predicts 
is  also  in  motion  to-day,  "the  movement  in  the  direc- 
tion of  recognizing  the  Negro  as  a  citizen  in  the  full 
sense  of  the  word." 

That  is  not  distinctly  a  Northern  movement.  It  is 
a  Southern  movement  as  well.  There  are  many 
Southern  men  who  are  determined  that  the  Negro 
shall  not  be  reduced  to  serfdom;  who  mean  that  he 
shall  have  a  chance  to  be  a  man — to  make  of  himself 
what  God  meant  him  to  be. 

Listen  to  the  words  of  the  Southern  man  who  now 
presides  over  the  university  founded  by  Thomas 
Jefferson:  "The  best  Southern  people  are  too  wise 
not  to  know  that  posterity  will  judge  them  according 
to  the  wisdom  they  use  in  this  great  concern.  They 
are  too  just  not  to  know  that  there  is  but  one  thing 
to  do  with  a  human  being,  and  that  is  to  give  him 
a  chance." 

What  is  to  be  done  with  the  Negro  race?  It  "must 
somehow  be  built  into  this  national  fabric,  and  or- 
ganically incorporated  with  the  national  life  and 
character."  That  is  the  word  of  Professor  Wood- 
ward of  Trinity  College,  South  Carolina. 

"For  a  superior  race  to  hold  down  an  inferior  one 
simply  that  the  superior  race  may  have  the  services 
of  the  inferior  was  the  social  doctrine  of  mediaeval- 

74 


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ism.  To  deny  the  Negro  the  highest  and  strongest 
influences  is  to  enslave  him  to  a  life  of  moral  weak- 
ness and  moral  degradation ;  and  the  God  who  made 
him,  in  the  final  settlement  of  human  history,  will  not 
likely  overlook  such  unrighteous  conduct."  That  is 
the  word  of  President  Kilgo  of  the  same  college. 

While  the  development  of  the  higher  life  (of  the 
Negro)  may  come  slowly,  even  blunderingly,  it  is  dis- 
tinctly to  be  welcomed."  That  is  the  word  of  the 
Rev.  Edgar  Gardner  Murphy  of  Alabama. 

We  must  not  belittle  the  work  that  has  been  done 
for  the  Negro  in  the  South,  since  it  has  been  a  great 
and  beneficent  work,  and  the  men  who  have  taken 
part  in  it  deserve  the  honor  of  the  nation  and  of 
human-kind. 

If  at  this  moment  the  movement  which  they  repre- 
sent seems  to  be  losing  ground,  and  "the  movement 
in  the  direction  of  reducing  the  Negroes  to  a  perma- 
ment  condition  of  serfdom"  seems  to  be  advancing, 
we  may  hope  that  this  reverse  is  temporary,  and  the 
forces  of  Christian  civilization  are  sure  to  prevail. 

"The  forces  of  Christian  civilization,"  I  have  said. 
I  have  not  spoken  of  the  Christian  Church,  but  it 
would  seem  that  it  ought  not  to  be,  in  this  computa- 
tion, a  negligible  quantity.  Does  the  Christian 
Church  believe  that  the  Negro  is  a  man?  Does  it 
believe  that  Christ  died  for  him?  Does  it  believe 
that  the  word  of  Jesus  is  addressed  to  him,  "Be  ye 
therefore  perfect,  even  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is 
perfect"?  Does  the  obligation  rest  on  him  of  mak- 
ing the  most  of  himself,  of  cultivating  to  the  full  the 
powers  with  which  his  Creator  has  endowed  him? 

We  know  what  some  Christians  of  the  South  think 
about  these  things,  for  the  above  words  that  I  have 
quoted  just  now  are  the  words  of  Christian  men, 
and  they  were  inspired  by  love  and  loyalty  to  Jesus 

75 


Cfte   Conflict 


Christ ;  the  mind  of  Christ  is  in  them.  And  it  would 
seem  that  the  great  truth  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God 
and  the  Brotherhood  of  Man,  which  is  shining  forth 
in  these  days  with  such  compelling  clearness,  which 
is  forcing  men  in  all  the  lands  to  consider  the  cause 
of  the  poor,  and  to  do  justly  and  love  mercy,  must 
become  the  controlling  influence  in  the  church  of 
Jesus  Christ  everywhere. 

If  that  central  truth  of  Christianity  is  accepted 
by  the  churches  of  the  country,  North  and  South, 
there  can  be  no  question  about  the  solution  of  this 
problem. 

CONFLICT  OF  OPPOSING  TENDENCIES. 

In  the  meantime  the  issue  is  clear  between  the 
ideas  and  interests  represented  by  the  two  Governors 
and  Senator  Tillman  on  the  one  hand,  and  those  rep- 
resented by  these  college  presidents  and  professors 
on  the  other,  and  the  question  is,  which  of  these 
movements  is  destined  to  prevail? 

What  will  happen  if  the  first  of  these  movements 
becomes  prevalent  I  have  tried  to  indicate.  If  the 
other,  which  is  in  harmony  with  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  and  with  the  instincts  of  human- 
ity and  with  the  principles  of  the  Christian  religion, 
should  prove  the  stronger,  the  two  races  would 
continue  to  dwell  together  peacefully;  the  laws 
would  be  rigidly  and  steadily  enforced  equally 
against  Negro  brutality  and  white  savagery; 
each  race  would  learn  to  respect  the  other  and  to 
respect  itself;  the  specter  of  miscegenation  would 
vanish  and  the  two  races  would  co-operate  produc- 
tively for  the  common  good.  Each  needs  the  other; 
the  highest  prosperity  and  welfare  of  each  depends 

76 


C6e   Conflict 


on  the  friendship  of  the  other.  Not  only  on  its 
friendship,  on  its  well-being  also. 

Those  reactionaries  at  the  South  who  imagine 
that  they  can  build  economic  prosperity  on  a  pros- 
trate laboring  class  are  simply  ignorant  of  the  com- 
monest truths  of  human  experience.  It  is  a  momen- 
tous conflict  between  these  opposing  tendencies. 

The  chief  theatre  of  it  is  at  the  South,  but  the 
North  is  involved  in  it. 

We  have  had  our  own  outbreaks  of  savagery,  in 
which  race-hatred  made  wild  beasts  of  men;  and  so 
long  as  our  industries  shut  the  Negro  out  of  all  the 
best  opportunities,  we  have  few  stones  to  throw  at 
our  Southern  brethren. 

Our  trades  unions  are  less  frank  in  their  treatment 
of  the  Negro  than  Governor  Vardaman  or  Senator 
Tillman,  but  they  are  not  much  less  inhuman. 

We  must  clear  our  skirts  of  these  stains  before 
the  North  can  hope  to  speak  to  the  South  as  per- 
suasively as  it  ought  to  speak  respecting  the  rights 
of  the  Negro. 

Nevertheless,  the  problem  at  the  South,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  is  a  national  problem,  and  we 
must  not  withhold  our  hands  from  doing  what  we 
can  to  help  in  its  right  solution  there.  With  those 
true  and  brave  witnesses  whose  voices  we  have  heard, 
and  with  all  who  stand  with  them  for  the  opportun- 
ity of  the  Negro  to  be  a  man,  we  join  ourselves  in  an 
earnest  endeavor  to  open  to  him  the  gates  of  op- 
portunity and  to  lift  up  before  him  the  ideals  of 
Christian  civilization." 

"With  redoubled  emphasis  I  ask,  can  it  be  possible 
that  any  race  of  people  would  be  so  rash  as  to  invoke 
their  own  annihilation  by  open  and  brutal  defiance 
of  God  through  persistently  trying  to  prevent  the 

77 


Cbe    Conflict 


Negro  from  developing  to  the  limit  whatever  good- 
ness God  has  implanted  in  him? 

If  the  white  race  can  succeed  in  this  dastardly  at- 
tempt then  infidelity  and  atheism  is  enthroned  and 
the  world  goes  back  to  beastly  anarchism,  and  says 
with  me :  damn  the  white  man  of  America's  religion, 
damn  his  church,  damn  his  preaching,  and  damn  his 
false  interpretation  of  God's  Book  of  Holy  Writ, 
and  the  compassionate  Christ. 

Coming  now  to  the  Seventh  Section  of  "The  Mu- 
latto Negro,  etc.,"  the  writer  says:  "The  advocates 
of  the  elevating  process,  to  be  consistent,  should  also 
advocate  giving  the  Negro  a  country  and  a  govern- 
ment of  his  own;  but,  strange  to  say,  those  who  are 
most  insistent  upon  the  high  qualities  and  great  pos- 
sibilities of  the  Negro  race  oppose  any  colonization 
scheme  upon  the  ground  that  the  Negro  cannot  be 
trusted  to  work  out  his  own  salvation.  People  are 
continually  talking  about  educating  and  elevating  the 
Negro  as  the  final  and  amicable  solution  of  the  race 
problem,  when  they  must  know,  in  the  light  of  all 
past  history,  that  whenever  the  Negro  rises  to  the 
dignity  of  rivalry  with  the  Anglo-Saxon  his  doom 
is  sealed."  It  may  be  the  doom  of  his  rival. 

The  world  and  Russia  thought  likewise  about 
the  "little  brown  men  of  Nippon." 

Remember,  the  Negroes  make  no  boast  by  way  of 
inviting  such  an  issue,  but,  by  the  Eternal  it  is 
sealed  as  writ  that  he  will  be  whatever  it  is  in  him 
to  be,  and  all  the  combined  powers  of  darkness  are 
impotent  to  prevent  it.  You  and  those  of  your 
thought  had  better  be  satisfied  that  there  is  room  for 
fair  play  for  all.  In  such  a  rash  declaration  your 
race  has  much  to  lose  and  nothing  to  gain ;  while 
the  Negro  has  much — the  hope  of  being  a  man,  or 
dying  in  the  struggle — yea.  in  the  cataclysm  or  the 

78 


C6e    Conflict 


holocaust,  whatever  you  might  choose  to  forecall  it. 

When  a  patience  like  that  of  the  Negro's  ceases  to 
be  a  virtue  animate  and  inanimate  creation  will  stand 
aghast  at  a  conflict  the  like  of  which  the  world  has 
never  seen. 

Continuing  this  section:  "The  measure  of  con- 
sideration which  he  receives  at  present  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  we  feel  ourselves  so  immeasurably  above 
him. 

It  is  a  case  of  "noblesse  oblige."  Well,  why  in 
all  creation  do  you  oppose  him  so  hard?  "To  unset- 
tle a  weak  mind,  were  an  easy,  inglorious  triumph. 
And  a  strong  cause  taketh  little  count  of  the  worth- 
less suffrage  of  a  fool."  "Thrice,  not  twice,  but  three 
times,  is  he  armed  who  hath  his  quarrel  just,  and  he 
but  naked  though  locked  up  in  steel  whose  conscience 
with  injustice  is  corrupted." 

Again,  I  say: 

"Within  the  breast  of  many  a  one  who  cannot  bear 

to  see, 

The  hated  negro  prospering, 
This  form  of  prayer  may  be: 

'O,  Lord,  do  keep  the  nigger  back. 
Let  darkness  be  his  shroud. 

He's  tripping  close  upon  our  track, 
He's  ranting  long  and  loud. 

We've  sent  some  educated  farmers  to  the  legis- 
lative halls — 
To  make  some  laws,  that  when  enforced  should 

make  the  nigger  fall. 
We've  clipped  his  rights,  we've  stole  his  vote, 

but  he  rises  over  all. 
O,  Lord,  do  keep  the  nigger  back." 

79 


C&e    Conflict 


Still  gnashing  her  teeth  over  the  "Mulatto  Peril" 
she  writes : 

"Mr.  Thomas  Nelson  Page,  in  the  summary  of 
his  conclusions  on  this  subject  says:  'There  are  but 
two  solutions  of  the  Negro  problem:  we  must  re- 
move him,  or  we  must  elevate  him.' "  Mr.  Page 
would  have  put  the  case  more  accurately  in  saying: 
"If  we  elevate  him  we  must  remove  him." 

In  himself  are  the  elements  of  elevation,  hence, 
the  question  arises:  can  you  remove  him?  You  are 
certainly  trying  hard. 

Beginning  April,  1907,  Mr.  Ray  Stannard  Baker 
had  a  series  of  articles  appearing  in  the  American 
Magazine,  "Following  the  Color  Line."  From  the 
July  number,  I  quote,  "Continued  aggression,"  John 
Hay  once  said,  "is  the  necessity  of  a  false  position." 
The  ante-bellum  Southern  leaders  saw  that  they  must 
either  extend  their  institution  or  else  face  its  ulti- 
mate extinction. 

At  the  present  time  we  have  a  repetition  of  the 
ante-bellum  aggression.  As  it  happened  then,  we 
have  speakers  like  Tillman  and  others  coming  North 
urging  the  validity  of  the  Southern  treatment  of  the 
Negro. 

Writers  like  Thomas  Dixon  rekindle  old  fires  of 
hatred. 

At  the  same  moment  that  Tillman  is  abusing  the 
North  for  its  interest  in  Southern  education,  he 
himself  is  speaking  from  Northern  platforms  to 
make  sentiment  for  the  Southern  position.  So  we 
have  the  extension  of  disfranchisement  and  "Jim 
Crow"  laws  to  the  new  Western  State  of  Oklahoma 
and  the  agitation  for  disfranchisement  in  Mary- 
land. So  we. have  the  advancing  demand  by  South- 
erners in  Congress  for  the  repeal,  of  the  Fifteenth 
Amendment,  and  just  recently  Congressman  Heflin 

So 


Cfje   Conflict 


of  Alabama  has  introduced  a  bill  seeking  to  provide 
for  "Jim  Crow"  distinctions  upon  the  street  cars 
of  Washington.  How  all  this  recalls  efforts  of 
the  ante-bellum  Southern  congressmen  to  force  the 
United  States  government  to  take  the  Southern  po- 
sition on  the  slavery  question. 

FIGHTING  TO  KEEP  THE  NEGRO  DOWN. 

I  have  recently  read  some  of  the  voluminous  dis- 
cussions upon  the  subject  of  slavery  which  took  place 
before  the  Civil  War,  and  I  have  been  astonished  to 
find  the  arguments  of  the  Southern  political  leaders 
of  to-day  almost  identical  in  substance  (though 
changed  somewhat  in  form)  with  the  reasoning  of 
the  old  slave-owning  class. 

One  hears  the  same  arguments  regarding  the 
physiological  and  ethnological  inferiority  of  all  col- 
ored men  to  all  white  men;  the  argument  that  "one 
drop  of  Negro  blood  makes  a  Negro,"  and  even  that 
the  Negro  is  not  a  human  being  at  all,  but  is  a  beast. 

I  have  before  me  a  book  recently  published  by  a 
Bible  house  (of  all  places!)  in  St.  Louis  and  widely 
circulated  in  the  South.  It  is  entitled,  "Is  the  Negro 
a  Beast?"  and  it  goes  on  to  prove  by  Biblical  quota- 
tion that  he  has  no  soul! 

Being  a  beast,  it  becomes  a  small  matter  to  kill 
him. 

One  also  hears  the  argument  now,  as  in  slavery 
times,  of  the  divine  right  of  the  white  man  to  rule 
the  Negro.  "God  intended  the  white  man  to  rule," 
says  Vardaman,  "and  the  Negro  to  be  a  humble  ser- 
vant." And,  finally,  there  is  the  frank  argument  of 
physical  force :  that  the  white  man,  being  strong,  will 
and  must  rule  the  Negro. 

Hoke  Smith  to-day  is  supporting  the  idea  of  a 
81 


Cfje   Conflict 


white  aristocracy  exactly  as  Robert  Toombs  did  be- 
fore the  war. 

Of  course,  Hoke  Smith  has  receded  from  the  be- 
lief in  the  chattel  slavery  of  the  Negro  for  which 
Toombs  contended,  but  in  many  other  respects  he 
evidently  believes  that  the  Negro  should  be  reduced 
(as  ex-Congressman  Fleming  of  Georgia  says  in  the 
quotation  given  above)  "to  slavery  in  many  of  its 
substantial  forms." 

In  order  to  validate  its  position  and  keep  its  place 
(and  make  the  Negro  keep  his).,  the  white  aristoc- 
racy has  been  formed  to  defend  the  doctrine  of  all 
monarchies  and  aristrocracies — the  inequality  of  men 
in  all  respects. 

Hoke  Smith  states  the  fundamental  assumption 
thus  plainly  in  his  address  (June  Qth,  1906)  :  "I  be- 
lieve the  wise  course  is  to  plant  ourselves  squarely 
upon  the  proposition  in  Georgia  that  the  Negro  is  in 
no  respect  the  equal  of  the  white  man,  and  that  he 
cannot  in  the  future  in  this  State  occupy  a  position 
of  equality." 

Out  of  this  position  has  flowed  naturally  and  in- 
evitably the  long-  list  of  discriminatory  laws,  limita- 
tion of  the  franchise,  hostility  to  education,  "Jim 
Crow"  legislation,  and  the  like,  all  of  which  tend,  of 
course,  to  force  the  Negro  back  to  a  position  of  eco- 
nomic servitude. 

And  Vardaman,  honestly  pursuing  his  position  to 
the  logical  end  (for  Vardaman,  when  all  is  said,  has 
the  frank  courage  of  his  convictions)  has  asserted 
that  there  must  be  two  sorts  of  justice  in  the  South 
— a  justice  for  white  men  and  a  justice  for  Negroes, 
He  says:  "Men  talk  of  justice  and  the  enforcement 
of  the  laws  upon  the  white  man  and  the  Negro  alike, 
as  though  such  a  thing  were  possible.  Justice  must 
be  the  end  and  aim  of  all,  but  justice  to  the  Negro 

82 


C&e   Conflict 


does  not  mean  that  you  must  treat  the  Negro  in  all 
matters,  even  in  the  enforcement  of  the  law,  as  you 
would  the  white  man.  ...  In  spite  of  the  pro- 
visions of  the  Federal  Constitution,  the  men  who 
are  called  upon  to  deal  with  this  great  problem  must 
do  that  which  is  necessary  to  be  done,  even  though 
it  may  have  the  appearance  at  times  of  going  some- 
what outside  the  law." 

Thus  it  is  sacriligiously,  painfully  evident  that 
these  nation  corruptors  and  world  polluters  are 
frantically  endeavoring  to  induce  this  nation  and  the 
world  to  become  candidates  for  Hell — red  hot  and 
unadulterated. 

In  such  infernally  inspired  fiends  I  see  the  white 
multi-crime-soaked  imps  of  the  horned-head,  claw- 
fingered,  fire-eyed,  forked-tailed,  misshapened-bod- 
ied,  web-footed  personality  as  pictured  incarnate  by 
Dante. 

O,  ye  Gods,  and  Angelic  Hosts  (if  such  there  be), 
defend  this  nation  and  the  world,  and  insure  to  us 
that  paradise  which  we  are  preached  the  Christ  died 
and  arose  to  make  sure. 

"BOTH  THE  SOUTH  AND  THE  NORTH 
UNDEMOCRATIC. 

Thus  I  have  attempted  to  present  the  political 
situation  in  the  South  and  the  reasoning  which  under- 
lies it.  It  possesses  a  large  significance  for  the  en- 
tire country.  Here  is  the  fact:  the  war  and  the 
emancipation  proclamation  did  not  make  the  South 
completely  democratic;  it  merely  cut  away  one  bul- 
wark of  aristocracy — slavery. 

The  South  is  still  dominated  by  the  aristocratic 
idea,  and  more  or  less  frankly  so.  The  South  has 
admitted  only  grudgingly,  and  not  yet  fully,  the 

83 


Cbe    Conflict 


"poor  white"  man  to  democratic  political  fellow- 
ship. 

There  are,  as  I  have  shown,  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  disfranchised  white  Americans  in  the 
South.  Moreover,  many  white  leaders  look  askance 
on  the  new  Italian  immigrants,  though  they,  too, 
are  white  men.  The  extreme  point  of  view  in  regard 
to  the  foreigner  was  expressed  in  a  speech  by  the 
Hon.  Jeff  Truly,  candidate  for  Governor  of  Missis- 
sippi, at  Magnolia  in  that  State,  on  March  i8th, 
1907: 

"I  am  opposed  to  any  inferior  race.  The  Italian 
immigration  scheme  does  not  settle  the  labor  ques- 
tion; Italians  are  a  threat  and  a  danger  to  our 
racial,  industrial  and  commercial  supremacy.  Mis- 
sissippi needs  no  such  immigration.  Leave  your  lands 
to  your  own  children.  As  Governor  of  the  State,  I 
promise  that  not  one  dollar  of  the  State  shail  be 
spent  for  the  immigration  of  any  such." 

As  for  the  Negro,  of  course,  the  South  has  never, 
and  does  not  now,  believe  in  a  democracy  which 
really  includes  him. 

But  neither  does  the  North. 

When  we  get  right  down  to  it,  the  controlling 
white  men  in  the  North  do  not  believe  in  an  inclus- 
ive democracy  much  more  than  the  South.  I  have 
talked  with  many  Northerners  who  go  South,  and  it 
is  astonishing  to  see  how  quickly  most  of  them  adopt 
the  Southern  point  of  view.  For  it  is  the  doctrine 
which  many  of  them,  down  in  their  hearts,  really 
believe.  Of  course,  the  North  preserves  a  fiction  of 
complete  democracy,  but  in  reality  the  North  also 
has  an  aristocratic  government,  an  oligarchy  based 
upon  wealth  and  property,  which  dominates  politics 
and  governs  the  country  more  or  less  completely. 

Roosevelt  has  been  fighting  some  of  the  more 
84 


CM    Conflict 


boisterous  aspects  of  the  rule  of  this  oligarchy,  and 
has  shown  the  country  how  powerful  it  is ! 

THE   UNDER   MAN   FIGHTING  ALL   OVER 
THE  WORLD. 

It  is  curious,  indeed,  when  one's  attention  is  awak- 
ened to  the  facts,  how  strong  the  parallel  is  between 
the  South  and  the  North.  I  mean  here  a  parallel 
not  in  laws  or  even  in  customs,  but  in  spirit,  in  the 
living  reality  which  lies  down  deep  under  institu- 
tions, which  is,  after  all,  the  only  thing  that  really 
counts. 

The  cause  of  all  the  trouble  in  the  North  is  ex- 
actly what  it  is  in  the  South — the  under  man  will  not 
keep  his  place. 

He  is  restless,  ambitious ;  he  wants  civil,  political 
and  industrial  equality. 

Thus  we  see  the  growth  of  labor  organizations, 
and  the  spread  of  populist  and  socialist,  who  de- 
mand new  rights  and  a  greater  share  in  the  products 
of  labor. 

They  will  not,  as  Hoke  Smith  says  of  the  Negroes, 
"content  themselves  with  the  place  of  inferiority." 

The  essential  feature  of  the  history  of  the  last  five 
years  in  this  country,  and  it  will  go  down  in  history 
as  the  beginning  of  great  things,  has  been  the  vague, 
crudely  powerful  effort  of  the  under  man  (half  his 
strength  wasted  because  he  is  blind)  to  limit  in  some 
degree  the  power  of  this  moneyed  aristocracy. 

Such  is  the  meaning  of  the  demand  for  trust  and 
railroad  legislation,  such  the  significance  of  the  in- 
surance investigation,  such  the  effort  to  curb  the 
power  of  men  like  Rockefeller,  Harriman  and  Mor- 
gan. 

Societies  as  well  as  men  have  different  methods  of 
85 


Cfce   Conflict 


expression :  One  man  reveals  his  strength  by  the 
blow  of  his  clenched  fist,  another  with  the  rapier  of 
his  mind. 

The  coin  of  expression  of  the  South  is  talk  and 
legislation;  that  of  the  North  is  cash,  property. 

When  the  South  becomes  as  rich  and  prosperous 
as  the  North,  it  will  not  concern  itself  with  the  "su- 
periority" and  "inferiority"  problem  to  the  extent 
that  it  does  now.  A  man  who  is  rich  can  set  him- 
self apart  without  recourse  to  law-making;  he  can 
buy  his  exclusiveness  and  convince  himself  of  his 
superiority  with  material  possessions.  So  the  North, 
in  spirit,  disfranchises  its  lower  class  exactly  after 
the  manner  of  the  South.  It  does  it  by  the  purchase 
of  elections  in  one  form  or  another  of  its  "poor 
whites"  and  its  Negroes. 

What  else  is  the  meaning  of  Tammany  Hall  and 
the  boss  and  machine  system  in  other  cities?  Tam- 
many Hall  is  our  method  of  disfranchisement :  it  is 
our  cunning  machine  for  nullifying  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  amendments.  While  the  South  is  dis- 
franchising (with  frankness)  by  legislation,  the 
North  is  doing  it  by  cash. 

THE  QUESTION  WE  ARE  COMING  TO. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  lack  of  free  speech  in  the 
South;  but  that  is  not  peculiar  to  the  South,  though 
there  is,  undoubtedly,  a  far  greater  intellectual  free- 
dom to-day  in  the  North  than  in  the  South,  yet  for 
every  professor  disciplined  in  the  South  for  his 
utterances  on  the  Negro  problem,  the  North  can 
match  a  professor  disciplined  for  his  utterances  on 
the  trust  or  railroad  questions.  South  or  North,  it 
is  dangerous  to  attack  the  entrenched  privileges  of 
those  in  control. 

86 


Cfte   Conflict 


And  the  North  also  has  its  "Jim  Crow"  regula- 
tions— not  by  that  name,  but  none  the  less  real.  The 
under  man  in  the  North  is  set  apart,  unescapably,  in 
hotels,  restaurants,  railroad  trains  and  everywhere 
else. 

Imagine  a  carpenter,  iron  worker,  street  cleaner, 
trying  to  live  at  the  Astor  Hotel  or  the  St.  Regis — 
or  a  Russian  Jewish  tailor  eating  at  Delmonico's, 
and  on  the  railroads  the  aristocrats  travel  in  private 
cars  or  Pullmans;  for  all  essential  purposes  the  line 
is  drawn  between  upper  man  and  under  man  as  ef- 
fectively as  though  by  statutes. 

We  are  horrified  in  the  North  by  the  frankness  of 
Vardaman  in  advocating  different  standards  of 
justice  for  white  men  and  Negroes,  but  we  do  not 
have  the  same  custom  in  the  North  ?  How  extreme- 
ly difficult  it  is  sometimes  to  get  a  rich  criminal  into 
jail  in  the  North! 

The  North  also  believes  thoroughly  in  the  divine 
right  theory — the  divine  right  of  the  man  who  owns 
property — and  the  more  property  he  owns  the  di- 
viner his  right. 

The  South  has  this  single  great  advantage  over  the 
North — its  under  men  are  all  colored  and  can  be 
readily  distinguished. 

So  the  North  preserves  its  "color  line,"  not  by  ob- 
trusively frank  legislation,  but  by  purchase,  by  prop- 
erty. 

The  spirit,  North  and  South,  is  the  same. 

In  short,  we  are  coming  again  face  to  face  in  this 
country  with  the  same  tremendous  (even  revolution- 
ary) question  which  presents  itself  in  every  crisis  of 
the  world's  history — a  sign  in  itself  of  the  greatness 
and  virility  of  the  age  in  which  we  live :  "What  does 
democracy  include?  Does  democracy  really  include 
Negroes  as  well  as  white  men?  Does  it  include  Rus- 

87 


€&e    Conflict 


sian  Jews,  Italians,  Japanese?  Does  it  include 
Rockefeller  and  the  Slavonian  street-sweeper,  and 
Tillman  and  the  Negro  farmhand?" 

The  white  man's  "industrial  emancipation  will 
never  come  until  he  recognized  the  Negro  as  a  man 
and  brother  in  the  industrial  world.  In  my  larger 
book  to  follow  this  I  shall  more  exhaustively  discuss 
the  industrial  relation  of  the  \vmtj  in:-n  to  the  Negro 
in  which  I  shall  reproduce  an  article  by  me,  and 
which  appeared  in  the  "Commoner  and  Glasswork- 
er,"  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  September  I4th,  1889,  in  a  spe- 
cially illustrated  series  along  with  the  Rev.  Dr.  Ed- 
ward McGlynn,  the  great  single-tax  priest;  August 
Donath,  the  then  president  of  the  International 
Typographical  Union  and  editor  of  the  "Craftsman," 
the  official  organ  of  the  Union,  and  others  equally 
prominent  as  writers  and  thinkers  in  interest  of  the 
laborer. 

I  shall  also  in  that  book  republish  a  bill  drawn  by 
me  and  intended  to  be  introduced  in  the  national 
Legislature.  Said  bill  intended  to  compel  an  equit- 
able distribution  of  the  wealth  which  labor  in  con- 
junction with  capital  creates. 

Said  bill  was  drawn  by  me  twenty  years  ago,  was 
read  to  an  audience  in  Mercer  Hall  at  Princeton, 
N.  J.,  was  read  by  me  before  bodies  of  organized 
labor  at  Trenton,  N.  J.,  at  Philadelphia,  Pa.,  and 
elsewhere  and  published  in  several  daily  and  weekly 
papers,  but  laughed  at  as  visionary. 

I  state  all  this  because  the  same  principles  as  set 
up  in  that  bill  are  just  now  beginning  to  be  applied 
through  legislation  and  by  executive  order — notably 
under  the  Roosevelt  administrations. 

In  discussing  the  question  of  superiority  or  inferi- 
ority of  the  Negro  as  against  the  white,  as  relates  to 
the  justice  accorded  the  classed  inferior  of  the  one 

88 


Conflict 


race  or  the  other,  the  white  fares  the  better,  because 
of  opportunity  afforded,  both  North  and  South,  to 
prove  their  worth  by  the  exercise  of  developed  abil- 
ity, and  the  reward  as  finally  given  in  recognition. 

Thus  the  white  individual  is  everywhere  amenable 
to  the  highest  recognition  by  reward  for  display  of 
ability  which  is  often  inferior  to  that  of  many  Ne- 
groes of  extraordinary  superior  ability. 

Hence,  the  Negro,  despite  ingenious  and  multi- 
combined  obstacles,  often  compels  by  sterling  merit 
his  elevation  to  high  positions  of  reward  and 
honor,  though  there  are  many  who  have  never  yet 
received  approximately  the  full  reward  of  their  hon- 
orable merit. 

If  I  were  born  a and  not  as  it  is,  not 

knowing  who  I  am,  though  under  opposing  circum- 
stances denied  every  opportunity  afforded  others. 

Though  a  self-made  individual,  I  have  proven 
executive  and  versatile  ability,  which,  if  not  for  a 
foolish  sentimentality,  practically  cruel  caste  preju- 
dice, I  would  long  since  have  been  at  the  head  of 
some  great  corporate  enterprise  or  otherwise  high 
in  the  world  of  honors  and  emoluments. 

How  strangely  is  it  evident  that  there  are  numer- 
ous fools,  in  that  they  recognize,  yea,  worship,  idol- 
ize ability  where  it  is  veiled  under  a  seeming  na- 
tionality acceptable  to  their  fancy ;  whereas  repudia- 
tion would  quickly  follow  if  they  but  knew  it  was  an 
ability,  but  not  possessed  by  the  nationality  they  be- 
lieve it  to  be.  Such  is  the  hollow,  empty  fickleness  of 
life.  Damn  such  an  age  which  fosters  such  hypoc- 
risy. Damn  the  religion  of  a  people  who  evidence 
themselves  to  be  such  unmitigated  damn  fools. 

Universally,  I  see  this  damn  unholy,  un-Christly, 
un-Godly  sentiment  so  powerfully,  malignantly  exert- 
ed no  power  seeming  able  to  counteract  it  that  I 

89 


Cfte    Conflict 


despair  of  being  honest  and  getting  a  man's  chance 
to  exist  and  advance.  Hence,  I  am  forced  to  live 
a  lie  however  much  my  soul  hates  it.  /  must.  I  will. 
Blood  will  tell.  And  right  here,  I  am  reminded 
of  Auguste  Rodin's  statue,  "Le  Penseur,"  which 
personates  in  the  nude  a  giant  Negro  with  rope-like 
muscles,  sitting  on  a  huge  rock,  back  bowed,  left 
arm  resting  on  knee,  right  elbow  resting  on  thigh 
with  closed  right  fist  jammed  to  his  mouth  as  if  to 
suppress  some  terrible  pent-up  emotion.  The  pic- 
ture of  this  statue  recently  appeared  in  a  current 
magazine  with  a  poem  beneath  it  by  Julia  Magruder, 
entitled : 

"THE  THOUGHT. 

"Thinker  thou  art  not,  however  called, 
What  room  for  thought  in  that  poor,  narrow  head? 
Only  brute  instincts'  cry  for  daily  bread 
Has  reached  thy  consciousness,  securely  walled 
Behind  the  structure  of  coarse  bone  and  brawn, 
By  dreary  time  and  grievous  toil  induced. 
Patient   thou'st   lived   and   worked — the   thing  of 

scorn 
To  which,  by  those  who  think,  thou  art  reduced. 

"Yet  once,  indeed,  there  came  to  thee   a  thought, 
Gripping  thee,  as  thy  feet  this  clay.     Within, 
A  spark  thrilled  through  thy  mighty  frame  and 

wrought 

A  consciousness  of  outrage,  shame,  and  sin. 
Thy  great  hand  stops  thy  mouth,  to  hush  its  cry — 
A  piteous,  bitter,  and  unanswered:  Why?" 

And  then  in  "Everybody's  Magazine,"  Dec.,  1904, 
appeared  a  poem  by  Emery  Pottle,  entitled:  "MUTE." 
from  which  I  quote : 

90 


Cfte   Conflict 


"Here  on  his  Western  plains,   so  far,  so  still 

Where  dawn  and  twilight  fill  my  eyes 
With  wondering  tears,  and  earth  seems  as  the 

sill 
Of  Paradise, 

Mute  I  must  live,  and  one  day  die — 

Go  as  I  came,  the  silent  guest — 
And  none  shall  ever  hear  the  pent-up  cry 

Within  my  breast." 

Me.  I  feel  it.  Shut  up  from  all  the  world,  or 
who  am  I,  and  why  is  it  thus?  That  suppressed 
figure  is  not  I.  For  they  shall  hear  it.  Yes,  the 
world — the  ages  shall  hear  my  cry.  My  soul  shall 
speak  its  defiance. 

Democracy  in  its  technical  and  broadest  sense 
ought  to  include  the  rich  and  poor,  the  Negro  and 
the  white  alike,  but  it  does  not,  and  never  will  any- 
where, but  there  will  come  a  day  when  universally 
will  be  recognized  the  eternal  and  divine  right  of 
all  men  to  develop  and  demonstrate  the  best  that 
there  is  in  them,  and  reward  proportionately  will 
not — as  it  cannot  be  withheld  because  of  creed  or  na- 
tionality. 

This,  then,  will  be  as  it  should — the  recognition 
and  reward  of  merit — this  the  living  standard  of  true 
democracy. 

Socialistic  teachings  does  not  embrace  this  view  in 
its  tenets — the  "Golden  Rule"  does :  "Do  unto  others 
as  you  would  that  they  do  unto  you." 

Any  one  taking  a  correct  and  unbiased  view  of 
my  definition  here  given  of  the  standard  of  true 
democracy  will  unhesitatingly  admit  that  my  stric- 
tures on  page  105  on  the  democratic  party  in  the 
United  States  of  America,  and  such  of  its  leaders  as 

91 


Ci)e    Conflict 


Tillman,  Vardaman,  Dixon  and  others  is  altogether 
inadequate — no,  to  exhaust  adjectives  would  not  do 
their  "ilk"  that  due  them  as  obstructors  in  the  path 
of  real  democracy. 

The  writings  and  preachments  of  such  creatures 
affect  and  corrupt  the  minds  of  ignorant  and  weak 
mortals  who  have  generally  grown  up  undisciplined, 
or  are  false  cultured,  and  such  mortals  in  turn  trans- 
mit by  heredity  and  teaching  the  poison  of  their  own 
poisoned  minds  to  the  minds  of  their  children. 

Thus,  the  pernicious  seed  for  a  hell-crop  is  sown 
to  the  winds  of  the  world  only  to  be  finally  reaped 
in  a  whirlwind  by  way  of  strife  and  wars  among 
communities,  peoples,  and  nations. 

Sad  to  see  it,  yet  I  am  often  chagrined  to  see  some 
inconsequential,  hair-brained,  worthless  white  per- 
son, or  some  poorly-bred,  incapacitated,  raggedy, 
semi-starved,  despair-eyed,  overworked  white  youth 
assume  an  air  of  superiority  over  a  Negro  of  indu- 
bitable superiority,  or  hatefully  and  revengefully 
sneer  at  the  mention  of  some  act  or  work  of  merit 
by  a  Negro  in  whose  little  finger  is  more  intelligence 
than  in  the  combined  bodies  of  five  or  more  such 
green-eyed  sneerers. 

It  is  reported  that  the  late  Frederick  Douglass  on 
one  occasion  was,  by  his  matchless  oratory,  elec- 
trifying an  audience  of  several  thousand  when  in  the 
crowd  a  newly-landed  Irishman  yelled  out:  "Faith, 
ain't  he  a  foin  speaker !"  Whereupon  an  American 
born,  prejudice-blinded  Irishman  accompanying  him 
retorted:  "O,  sha,  he's  only  a  half  Nigger." 

The  first  Irishman  exclaimed:  "Gee,  if  only  a  half 
a  Nigger  can  do  that  good  what  wouldn't  a  whole 
Nigger  do!"  And  so  I  say. 

It  has  been  my  pleasurable  delight  to  squelch  not 
92 


C&c    Conflict 


a  few  of  such  up-start  sneerers  at  Negro  worth  and 
manhood. 

On  one  occasion,  while  sitting-  in  front  of  my 
place  of  business  in  the  leading  city  in  a  Southern 
State,  when  a  twisted  speech,  lean  looking,  ignorant 
white  country  youth  came  up  asking  me  some  in- 
formation regarding  the  city.  A  friendly  answer, 
one  word  brought  on  another.  He  finally  started  to 
discussing  the  Negro,  saying :  "The  colored  folks  here 
seem  to  put  on  a  lot  of  airs,  living  in  fine  houses,  and 
wearing  fine  clothes."  I  replied:  "That  if  they  did 
it  by  honest  effort  I  could  not  understand  that  it 
should  worry  anyone."  He  retorted  that :  "A  Nigger 
was  no  good  anyway."  I  replied:  "There  are  some 
industrious,  scholarly  Negroes  of  excellent  charac- 
ter." He  whined  back  that  "no  matter  what  they 
were,  he  never  seed  a  Nigger  the  equal  of  a  white 
man."  Then  I  opened  up  my  batteries  (so  to  speak) 
on  him,  telling  him:  "He  had  not  seen  everything, 
that,  in  fact,  he  had  seen  very  little ;  that  there  were 
Negroes  in  that  city  the  superiors  in  wealth  and  in- 
telligence to  any  white  man  back  in  the  woods  from 
where  he  came,  "that  I  was  his  superior  in  ability, 
in  character,  in  ideal,  and  in  means,  though  I  was  not 
white."  I  began  to  recount  to  him  briefly  the  dis- 
tinctions of  Bruce,  of  Douglass,  Langston,  Price, 
Revels,  Elliott,  Smalls,  Walls,  Dunbarr,  Dumas, 
Derrick,  Banneker,  Lyons,  Hannibal,  Generals 
Doods  and  L'Overture,  Arnett,  Allen,  Vernon, 
Washington,  Blyden,  Scarborough,  Du'boise,  Tan- 
ner, Aldridge,  Maceo,  Peter  Jackson,  Dixon,  God- 
frey, Cans,  Wolcott,  Veezy,  Cuffie,  and  a  long  line 
of  others  illustrious  in  oratory,  letters,  science,  state- 
craft, music,  art,  etc. 

I  recounted  Negro  industries,  organizations  and  in- 
stitutions. I  called  his  atention  to  Negroes  of  dis- 

93 


C6  e    Conflict 


tinction  and  Negro  enterprises  right  there  in  his  home 
state  and  in  the  city  where  he  then  was.  I  directed 
him  to  streets  in  that  city  where  he  would  see  what 
Negroes  were  doing  of  merit,  as  he  had  never  in  all 
his  life  seen  in  the  backwoods  and  swamps  where  he 
had  come  from.  As  I  throwed  it  into  his  "crop"  and 
jammed  it  down  his  throat  (so  to  speak)  he  became 
violent,  and  rushed  from  me,  as  if  to  remain  he  would 
burst  wide  open  from  the  effects. 

I  shot  it  into  him  and  at  him  as  he  ambled  away 
like  a  cur  hound-dog,  with  flopping  ears  and  hanging 
jaw.  God  pity  such  miserable,  cowardly  curs ! 

Taking  up  the  Eighth  Section  of  "The  Mulatto 
Negro,"  the  writer  says:  "There  is  yet  another 
phase  of  this  question  which  holds  a  darker  meaning 
for  the  whites  than  race  war  or  'black  supremacy.' 
Every  onlooker  in  Northern  cities  is  struck  with  the 
number  of  mulattoes  who  might  easily  pass  for  dark 
skinned  members  of  the  white  race.  Again  the  Negro 
-1— particularly  the  mulatto — despises  himself.  He  is 
ashamed  of  being  a  Negro,  and  bends  all  his  energies 
toward  wiping  out  that  fact.  No  epithet  of  abuse  is 
quite  so  offensive  to  him  as  his  own  appropriate 
racial  name.  Even  the  euphemistic  appellations 
'colored  gentleman,'  'Afro-American  citizen/  etc., 
have  become  distasteful  to  him.  He  grows  more  and 
more  resentful  of  any  kind  of  differentiation. 

An  important  witness  to  this  fact  is  the  statement 
of  the  chief  statistician  of  the  Census  Bureau,  that 
no  attempt  had  been  made  to  obtain  the  percentage 
of  mulattoes  in  the  total  Negro  population  for  1900 
because  of  the  growing  reluctance  of  quadroons  and 
octoroons  to  admit  their  real  identity.  Said  he: 
"Those  who  are  very  light  won't  admit  it  at  all,  and 
those  who  find  it  impossible  to  deny  it  altogether 
confess  to  it  in  a  less  degree  than  the  fact." 

94 


Conflict 


Instances  are  on  record  of  this  mongrel  class  per- 
juring themselves  rather  than  confess  to  their  Afri- 
can inheritance. 

Now,  what  is  the  significance  in  all  this?  It  must 
be  apparent  to  every  thoughtful  observer  that  the 
Negroes'  contempt  for  himself  and  his  kind  which 
prompts  him  by  every  possible  means  to  elude  identi- 
fication with  his  kind  will  also  lead  him  to  seek  ad- 
mission into  white  families  under  an  Anglo-Saxon 
guise,  if  need  be."  This  is  the  bone  which  chokes 
you — Ah !  See  ? 

"The  successful  pose  of  Hannah  Elias  in  the  cele- 
brated Platt  case  of  New  York ;  the  well  nigh  suc- 
cessful role  of  B.  Sheppard  White  in  Washington 
a  few  years  ago ;  the  more  recent  case  of  a  Minister 
from  one  of  the  Central  American  states,  whose  en- 
gagement to  a  proud  society  belle  was  brought  to  a 
sudden  termination  by  the  discovery  of  his  African 
descent,  all  point  very  ominously  to  the  possibility 
and  feasibility  of  unwitting  and  unwilling  amalga- 
mation of  races  in  this  country. 

Granting  that  this  wish  of  the  hybrid  Negro  to  lose 
his  identity  in  the  Caucasian  stream  has  its  pathetic 
side;  granting  also  the  retributive  justice  in  it  for 
the  proud  Anglo-Saxon  who  of  his  bestial  appetites 
has  made  whips  to  scourge  not  only  himself  but  his 
race ;  this  article  aims  only  at  pointing  out  the  most 
salient  traits  of  the  mulatto  and  their  significance  for 
the  white  people  of  the  North  particularly." 

As  a  truth  the  Negro  has  every  reason  to  be  proud 
of  his  record  as  already  made,  and  is  endeavoring  to 
so  live  as  to  make  the  word  Negro — his  name — signify 
for  all  time  a  proud,  a  progressive,  and  a  happy  race 
of  people;  but  at  this  point  the  writer  in  her  argu- 
ment seems  to  forget,  or  wantonly  ignores,  the  fact 
that  while  the  Ncrth  and  the  world  in  the  past  were 

95 


Cfje    Conflict 


condemning  the  mongrelistic  concubine  practices 
which  Southern  brutality  delighted  its  libidinous, 
memphomaniacally  lustful  passions  in,  the  loud- 
mouthed votaries  brayed  out  long  and  loud,  "Mind 
your  own  business,"  "This  is  our  own  domestic  in- 
stitution." Yea,  they  continued  the  propagation  of 
mongrelistic  hybrids,  converting  the  product  into 
cash  in  the  slave  markets  on  the  auction  block,  and 
now  that  the  slave  pen  has  been  torn  down  and  the 
auction  block  rooted  up,  they  still  continue  to  propa- 
gate the  mongrel  species,  which,  like  the  plagues  out 
of  Pandora's  box,  begin  to  scourge  them  in  discom- 
fiting their  villiany.  they  now  send  some  educated 
petticoats  throughout  the  land  to  cry  alarm. 

Where  is  the  cause  for  alarm?  "They  alone  are 
great  who  great  deeds  have  done"  ?  and  the  Negro  is 
great,  measured  by  "the  depths  from  which  he  has 
come." 

Individual  character,  brains  and  wealth  take  prece- 
dence over  empty  family  titles,  pride,  etc.,  as  made 
so  much  ado  about  in  the  continuance  of  this  section 
thus :  "In  the  nature  of  the  case  the  danger  must 
be  greater  in  those  states  where  miscegenation  re- 
ceives the  sanction  of  the  law,  the  conscientious  ap- 
proval of  a  portion  of  the  whites,  and  where  the 
freer  association  and  commingling  of  the  two  races, 
coupled  with  the  presence  of  a  large  foreign  popula- 
tion of  varying  complexion,  enables  the  masquerad- 
ing octoroon  to  pursue  his  course  with  more  or  less 
impunity. 

For  the  select  few  who  guard  with  jealous  care 
their  own  little  Anglo-Saxon  plot,  the  peril  is  not 
imminent,  perhaps.  But  a  great  many  quite  worthy 
and  well-meaning  Americans,  either  from  indiffer- 
ence or  from  a  democratic  scorn  of  aristocratic  pre- 
tensions, do  not  enquire  very  closely  into  the  antece- 

96 


C  &  e   Conflict 


dents  of  persons  claiming  to  be  "white  and  respect- 
able." This  applies  especially  to  the  North,  where 
the  "for  a'  that"  man  has  always  had  more  show 
than  at  the  South,  where  the  idea  of  caste  and  of 
family  pride  has  ever  been  dominant.  It  is  worthy 
of  note  that  exposure,  in  two  of  the  instances  cited 
above,  followed  upon  the  gentlemen's  proposing  mar- 
riage to  Southern  women,  whose  families  instituted 
the  customary  probing  into  genealogical  backgrounds. 

It  is  worthy  of  note,  also,  that  they  met  these 
Southern  ladies  in  Northern  society,  for  the  South- 
ern Negro,  be  he  black,  brown  or  lightest  tan,  is  care- 
fully fenced  off  "in  his  own  back  yard."  Which  fact, 
joined  with  the  knowledge  of  swift  and  certain  pun- 
ishment for  any  Negro  masquerading  as  a  Caucassian 
lessens  the  probability  of  mesalliances  of  this  char- 
acter occurring  at  the  South." 

At  the  South,  white  men  should  have  thought  of 
all  this  wonderful  philosophy  about  Anglo-Saxon 
purity  before  they  started  in  to  propagate  a  crop  of 
mulattoes,  as  a  theme  to  lecture  the  North  about. 

"Deep  is  the  sea,  and  deep  is  hell,  but  pride  mineth 
deeper."  Beneath  the  poverty,  rags,  and  turpitude 
of  an  obvious  class,  "It  is  coiled  as  a  poisonous  worm 
about  the  foundations  of  their  soul."  Yes,  "Pride  is 
a  double  traitor,  and  betrayeth  itself  to  entrap  thee. 
Rather  look  away  from  innate  evil,  and  gaze  upon 
extraneous  good,  for  in  viewing  the  heights  above 
thee  thou  shalt  be  taught  thy  littleness.  Could  an 
emmet  pry  into  itself  it  might  marvel  at  its  own 
anatomy;  but  let  it  look  on  eagles  to  discern  how 
mean  a  thing  it  is. 


97 


Conflict 


Beware  that  the  standard  of  thy  soul  wave  from 

the  loftiest  battlement: 
For  pride  is  a  pestilent  meteor,  flitting  on  the 

marshes  of  corruption, 
That  will  lure  thee  forward  to  thy  death,  if  thou 

seek  to  track  it  to  its  source. 
It  is  a  gloomy  bow,  arching  the  infernal  firmament, 
That  will  lead  thee  on,  if  thou  wilt  hunt  it,  even  to 

the  dwelling  of  despair." 

As  an  illumining  close  to  this  section,  I  here  re- 
produce the  report  of 

SOME  TRAGEDIES  OF  COLOR. 

In  the  news  despatches  through  the  daily  papers 
November  29th,  1909,  appeared  the  following: 

WIFE  AN  OCTOROON,  HE  IS  DRIVEN 
TO  SUICIDE 


Secret  of  Ex-Chancellor  Von  Buelow's  Cousin 
Revealed  in  New  Orleans 


Humiliated  by  Foes 

Arrested  for  Mixed  Marriage.    Husband 
Becomes  Desperate,  Dis- 
appears 


New  Orleans  Nov.  28th. — There  no  longer  seems 
to  be  any  doubt  that  Edward  von  Buelow,  a  cousin 
of  the  former  German  Chancellor,  has  killed  him- 
self. The  act,  following  upon  his  financial  ruin  and 
the  breaking  of  a  happy  home  which  he  maintained 

98 


€i)e    Conflict 


for  fourteen  years,  has  brought  to  light  a  pathetic 
and  romantic  story. 

His  fortune  was  deliberately  wrecked,  it  appears, 
and  his  most  sacred  secret — that  his  wife  was  an 
octoroon — was  deliberately  revealed  to  the  public  by 
enemies  he  made  in  cotton  speculations. 

"More  than  that,  he  was  arrested  under  the  law 
prohibiting  the  marriage  of  white  with  persons  hav- 
ing a  slight  trace  of  Negro  blood.  And  so,  penniless, 
heart-broken  and  facing  a  trial,  he  vanished,  and  it 
is  generally  believed,  killed  himself. 

"No  one  will  ever  see  my  husband  again.  He  is 
dead,"  said  Mrs.  Von  Buelow,  a  beautiful  woman, 
as  light  of  complexion  as  most  women  of  the  South, 
and  she  says,  the  daughter  of  a  judge  who  bore  an 
honored  name  in  Louisiana.  Her  two  children  are 
flaxen-haired  and  blue-eyed,  little  German-Ameri- 
cans." 

Another : 

"JILTED  GIRL  ENDS  LIFE. 

"Sandusky,  Ohio,  Nov.  29th,  1909. — Hannah 
Stanley,  nineteen,  daughter  of  a  colored  couple, 
but  frequently  taken  for  a  white  girl,  committed  sui- 
cide here  this  morning  by  drinking  carbolic  acid. 

"Acquaintances  say  that  a  young  man  from  a 
neighboring  city  who  had  been  courting  Miss  Stan- 
ley found  out  Sunday  night  that  she  was  not  of  his 
race  and  told  her  that  their  engagement  was  ter- 
minated. Hannah  Stanley  was  one  of  the  prettiest 
young  women  in  the  city.  She  dressed  in  the  height 
of  fashion  and  had  many  admirers." 

These  are  an  item  of  the  millions  of  crimes  worse 
than  murder  resulting  from  the  conduct  of  the 
Southern  Wilburs  as  referred  to  on  page  8. 

I  now  proceed  to  the  Ninth  and  last  section  of 
99 


C  ft  e   Conflict 


that  infernally  inspired  article  "The  Mulatto  Negro" 
as  appeared  in  the  National  Magazine,  January, 
1906,  by  one  Annie  Riley  Hale.  She  says: 

"This  then  appears  to  be  the  situation  in  brief:  the 
North  is  the  natural  and  preferred  home  of  the  mu- 
latto, by  common  consent,  who  is  to  'make  the  trou- 
ble' for  the  white  man.  It  goes  without  saying,  also, 
that  every  untoward  aspect  of  this  question  for  the 
North  will  be  aggravated  by  the  increase  of  her  Ne- 
gro population. 

"The  past  five  years  have  witnessed  a  rapid  in- 
flux of  Southern  Negroes  to  Northern  cities,  and  the 
next  decade  will  probably  augment  this  beyond  all 
previous  records.  Any  attempt  at  drastic  legisla- 
tion aimed  at  the  Southern  States  by  Congress  would 
surely  facilitate  and  precipitate  a  Negro  exodus  from 
those  States  into  the  North.  For  the  South  will 
wage  no  more  devastating  wars  over  the  Negro.  She 
has  had  enough  of  that,  nor  is  it  necessary.  There  is 
an  easier  way  out  of  the  difficulty.  The  South  is 
working  out  her  Negro  problem  along  industrial 
lines,  and  the  Negro,  all  unconsciously  to  himself, 
is  her  most  active  assistant  in  it.  In  the  slow  work- 
ing out  of  racial  destinies  it  becomes  practicable  to 
shift  the  burden  she  has  born  so  long  onto  the  shoul- 
ders of  her  quondam  critics,  and  in  doing  so  her 
temper  is  neither  pugnacious  nor  controversial.  She 
has  put  forth  her  best  writers  and  orators  in  the  past 
to  tell  the  North  and  the  world  tvhat  they  know 
about  this  unfortunate  race,  and  their  report  has 
been  credited  in  the  main.  One  of  these  writers, 
Mr.  Thomas  Nelson  Page,  says  apropos  of  this;  'We 
have  the  singular  example  in  this  country  of  opin- 
ions on  this  subject  being  weighed  and  estimated,  not 
according  to  the  character,  intelligence  and  oppor- 
tunity to  know  the  facts,  but  altogether  upon  the  geo- 

100 


Cfte    Conflict 


graphical  habitat  of  the  person  delivering  them.  As 
a  rule,  it  is  enough  to  know  that  a  writer  or  speaker 
comes  from  the  South  to  rob  his  testimony  of  half 
its  value.' " 

So  that  in  handing  over  to  the  North  the  Negro  and 
his  concomitant  perplexities,  the  South's  only  mes- 
sage is,  in  parliamentary  phrase:  "Are  you  ready 
for  the  question?  .  .  .  It  is  yours." 

Thus  ending  this  remarkable  tirade  the  writer  says 
she's  quitting.  I  cannot  conceive  it.  Nevertheless, 
this  book  and  more  to  follow  is  to  meet  the  damna- 
ble arguments  of  the  "South's  best  writers  and  ora- 
tors," as  she  says. 

She  admits  two  truths  in  closing:  That  the  South 
is  by  every  hook  and  crook  through  "its  best  writers 
and  orators,"  is  moving  earth  and  hell  to  pollute  and 
corrupt  the  North  and  the  world.  Second,  That  "the 
testimony  of  a  writer  or  speaker  from  the  South  is 
discredited  or  accepted  with  suspicion." 

This  is  precisely  as  it  should  be .    .    . 

"Behold  the  sorrowful  change  wrought  upon  a  fallen 
nature : 

He  hath  lost  his  own  esteem,  and  other  men's  re- 
spect ; 

For  plain  truth,  where  none  could  err,  he  hath  chosen 
tortuous  paths. 

Verily,  infirm  thyself, — be  slow  to  chide  a  brother's 
imperfections, 

For  many  times  the  decent  veil  must  hang  on  faults 
of  nature. 

Often  will  the  meanness  of  life  hidden  away  in  cor- 
ners 

Prove  wisdom;  and  the  generous  is  glad  to  leave 
them  unregarded  in  the  shade." 


10  r 


Clje   Conflict 


A  LECTURE  TO  THE  DEMAGOGUE. 

To  the  Vampire  of  the  Nation's  Other  Half. 

To  the  Souths  Only  and  Worst  Enemy, 

The  Nation's  Deadly  Foe. 

"Let  honesty  be  'companied  by  charity  of  heart,  lest 

it  walk  unwelcome; 
Or  the  mouthing  censor  of  others  and  himself  soon 

shall  sink  to  scorn. 
Let  honesty  be  added  unto  innocence  of  life :  then  a 

man  may  only  be  a  martyr; 
But  if  openness  of  speech  be  found  with  secrecy  of 

guilt,  the  martyr  will  be  seen  a  malefactor. 
There  is  a  cunning  scheme  to  put  on  surface  blunt- 
ness, 
And  cover  still  water  with  the  clamorous  ripples  of 

a  shallow. 

For  a  man  to  gain  his  selfish  ends  will  make  a  stalk- 
ing horse  of  honesty; 
And  hide  his  poaching  limbs  behind,  that  he  may 

cheat  the  quicker. 
Such  an  one  is  loud  and  ostentatious,  full  of  oaths 

for  argument 
Boastful  of  honor  and  sincerity,  and  not  to  be  put 

down  by  facts : 

He  is  obstinate,  and  showeth  it  for  firmness : 
He  is  rude,  displaying  it  for  truth; 
And  glorieth  in  doggedness  of  temper,  as  if  it  were 

uncompromising  justice." 

The  North  and  the  world  hath  seen  such  scoundrels. 
"Beware  of  such  a  man;  his  brawling  covereth  de- 

signs ; 
This  specious  show  of  honesty  cometh  as  the  herald 

of  a  thief: 

102 


C&e   Conflict 


His  feint  is  made  with  awkward  clashing  on  the 

buckler's  boss, 
But  meanwhile  doth  his  secret  skill  insure  its  fatal 

aim. 
This  the  hypocrite  of  honesty;  ye  may  know  him  by 

an  overacted  part; 
Taking  pains  to  turn  and  twist    where  other  men 

walk  straight; 
Or  walking  straight,  he  will  not  step  aside  to  let 

another  pass, 
But  roughly  pusheth  on,  provoking  opposition  on  the 

way; 

He  is  full  of  disquietude  for  calmness,  full  of  in- 
triguing for  simplicity, 
Valorous  with  those  who  cannot  fight,  but  humble 

with  the  brave. 
.Where  brotherly  advice  were  good,  this  man  rudely 

blameth, 
And  on  some  small  occasion  flattereth  with  coarse 

praise. 
The  craven  in  a  lion's  skin  hath  conquered  by  his 

character  of  courage; 
Sheep's  clothing  helped  the  wolf,  till  he  slew  by  his 

character  for  kindness." 

Such  unmitigated  scoundrels  have  no  place  in  a  Re- 
public   .     . 
No,  not  in  our  glorious  country    .    .    No. 

The  good  and  righteous,  like  the  Virgin  Queen, 
Victoria  of  England,  like  Grover  Cleveland  and 
Judge  Thomas  G.  Jones  of  our  land,  like  Sumner, 
Garrison,  Phillips,  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  Robert 
Emmet,  Benjamin  Disraeli,  Daniel  O'Connell  and 
the  list  too  long  to  here  enroll  are  the  personalities 
that  will  live  amid  the  annihilation  of  time. 
103 


Cfje    Conflict 


"For  honesty    hath  many  gains,  and  well  the  wise 

have  known 
This  will  prosper  to  the  end,  and  fill  their  house  with 

gold. 
The  phosphorus  of  cheatery  will  fade,  and  all  its 

profits  perish, 
While  honesty  with  growing  light  endureth  as  the 

moon." 

If  these  United  States  of  America  were  a  land  of 
thieves,  it  might  be  wise  to  dare  the  virtue  of 
honesty,  "if  any  would  be  rich." 

"For  that  which  by  the  laws  of  God  is  heightened 
into  duty, 

Ever  in  the  practice  of  a  man,  will  be  seen  both 
policy  and  privilege. 

Thank  God,  ye  toilers  for  your  bread,  in  that  daily 
laboring. 

He  hath  suffered  the  bubbles  of  self-interest  to  float 
upon  the  stream  of  duty: 

For  honesty  of  every  kind,  approved  by  God  and 
man, 

Of  wealth  and  better  weal  is  found  the  richest  cornu- 
copia. 

Tempered  by  humbleness  and  charity,  honesty  of 
speech  hath  honor ; 

And  mingled  well  with  prudence,  honesty  of  pur- 
pose hath  its  praise: 

Trust  payeth  homage  unto  truth,  rewarding  honesty 
of  action: 

And  all  men  love  to  lean  on  him  who  never  failed 
nor  fainted. 

Freedom  gloweth  in  his  eyes  and  nobleness  of  nature 
at  his  heart, 

And  independence  took  a  crown  and  fixed  it  on  his 
head: 

104 


Cfce   Conflict 


So,  he  stood  in  his  integrity,  just  and  firm  of  pur- 
pose, 

Aiding  many,  fearing  none,  a  spectacle  to  angels,  and 
to  men: 

Yea,  when  the  shattered  globe  shall  rock  in  the 
throes  of  dissolution, 

Still  will  he  stand  in  his  integrity,  sublime — an  honest 
man." 

Where  demagogues  dominate  is  not  the  place  for 
honest  men. 

It  is  certainly  not  the  place  for  men  who  would  be 
freemen. 

THE  MILITANT  PARTY  IN  UNITED 
STATES  OF  AMERICA. 

No  political  party  is  qualified  to  be  intrusted  with 
the  destinies  of  the  great  American  people  until  it 
has  proven  itself  qualified  to  deal  with  equality  and 
justice  among  all  the  people  in  the  States  in  which 
it  is  in  the  ascendency. 

In  a  republic  "of,  for,  and  by  the  people,"  no  man 
or  group  of  men  can  honestly  and  consistently  aspire 
to  political  distinction  or  official  position  with  the  in- 
tention of  carrying  into  execution  ideas  and  views 
favoring  the  interest  of  a  part  of  the  people,  a  class 
of  the  people,  or  a  section  of  the  country  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  another  part  of  the  people,  class  of  the 
people,  or  section  of  the  country,  whether  that  man 
or  group  of  men  be  called  Democrat,  Republican, 
Socialist,  Prohibitionist,  Independent,  Woman's 
Right  or  otherwise. 

Such  a  man  or  group  of  men  so  aspiring  are  inimi- 
cal to  the  constitution  and  to  the  republic  and  should 
be  shunned. 

105 


Cfje   Conflict 


By  this  standard  I  gauge  parties,  and  thus  find 
that  the  democratic  party  as  existing  in  the  United 
States  of  America  is  not  deserving  of  the  confidence 
of  either  men  or  women  who  claim  for  themselves 
freedom  of  thought  and  action  along  lines  of  right 
and  justice. 

It  is  a  fact  of  history  that  the  democratic  party 
in  the  United  States  of  America  has  either  originated 
or  championed  every  issue  that  threatens  the  peace 
and  progress  of  the  nation  and  the  perpetuity  of  our 
republican  constitution. 

It  was  that  party  which  prolonged  the  traffic  in 
human  souls  in  America,  devised  methods  for  its  con- 
tinuance, and  to  perpetuate  it  sought  to  destroy  the 
Union  of  States. 

It  is  that  party  in  the  States  in  which  it  controls 
to-day  through  a  rape  of  the  ballot  legislates  against 
freedom  of  speech  and  action,  and  by  legislation 
imposes  a  tax  upon  those  who  fought  to  defend  the 
Union  of  States;  said  tax  to  pension  those  who 
fought  to  dissolve  the  Union  and  to  perpetuate  slav- 
ery, and  thus  array  in  competition  the  millions  of 
poor  white  men,  women,  boys  and  girls  north  and 
south  against  slave  labor. 

This  pensioning  of  ex-Confederate  soldiers  is  not 
the  only  evidence  that  at  heart  and  in  practice  the 
democratic  party,  solidified  at  the  South,  is  still  the 
nation's  greatest  foe. 

If  not,  why  hug  the  memory  of  a  despicable  past 
and  a  lost  cause? 

If  not,  why  pedestalize  in  the  archives  of  the  capi- 
tols  of  the  Southern  States  and  look  with  idolatrous 
eyes  upon  the  tattered  returned  battle  flags,  the  in- 
signia of  a  traitorous  cause? 

These  flags  rightly  belong  at  the  nation's  capitol, 
and  no  man  who  has  the  courage  of  his  convictions 
106 


C6e    Conflict 


will  acquiesce  in  the  false  cry  "Peace"  while  the 
enemy  that  was,  yet  evidences  by  its  every  act  that 
what  it  could  not  accomplish  by  force  of  arms  it 
hopes  to  finally  accomplish  by  the  hypnotic  influence 
of  diplomacy  and  legislation. 

By  appeals  to  base  passions,  to  race  prejudice  and 
sectional  hate  the  leaders  of  the  Democratic  party 
at  the  South  secure  a  following  which  by  the  stuffing 
of  ballot  boxes  and  the  intimidation  of  voters  elect 
themselves  to  the  Governorship,  to  the  Legislature 
and  to  the  National  House  of  Representatives. 

It  is  a  fact  undenied  that  there  is  not  a  Democratic 
member  of  Congress  from  a  Southern  State  but  who 
is  there  by  virtue  of  suppressed  speech  and  stolen 
votes. 

The  same  being  true  of  the  Southern  democratic 
legislatures  which  elects  the  United  States  Senators 
from  the  South,  it  is  plainly  evident  that  our  republi- 
can form  of  government  is  dangerously  menaced. 

Will  this  republic  stand  while  this  condition  en- 
dures ? 

Gauging  the  democratic  party  by  the  men  who 
lead  it,  what  do  men  and  women  who  demand  for 
themselves  right  and  justice  and  fair  play  think  of 
the  industrious  preachments  and  writings  of  Ben. 
Tillman,  Jeff.  Davis,  Hoke  Smith,  Tom  Dixon, 
Claud  Swanson,  Williams,  Vardaman,  Slayden, 
Hefflin  Stone,  English,  Haskell  Graves,  Grady, 
Handy  and  the  host  of  other  rabid  Southern  lead- 
ers? What,  O,  what  do  you  think  of  them? 

The  Democratic  Party  through  its  leaders  is  not 
only  the  corruptors  of  the  nation,  but  of  the  world. 
They  allow  no  opportunity  to  pass  that  they  do  not 
try  to  convince  the  world  to  their  way  of  thinking, 
and  no  man  of  thought  and  observation  can  say  that 
they  are  not  making  converts. 
107 


Cfte   Conflict 


The  Democratic  Party  as  far  as  it  has  been  able 
has  nullified  every  act  of  right  and  justice  which 
has  been  sealed  by  Union  soldiers'  sacrifice  of  blood 
and  treasure  on  gory  fields  of  war  and  carnage,  and 
in  the  nation's  congress. 

Trust  them  further,  and  it  is  only  a  question  of 
time  when  the  nation  by  legislation  at  its  seat  of  gov- 
ernment will  be  taxed  to  pension  those  who  sought 
its  destruction. 

Not  only  this:  damages  for  every  chicken,  goat, 
or  hog  lost,  or  every  blade  of  grass  trampled  in  the 
South  during  the  war  of  the  rebellion  will  be  exact- 
ed by  ex-rebels  or  their  representatives  in  Congress. 

I  have  in  my  possession  a  bill  I  came  by  traveling 
through  the  South  some  years  ago.  Said  bill  de- 
manding damages  for  a  donkey  killed,  and  other  in- 
consequentials  lost  during  the  war.  This  bill  was  in- 
tended to  have  been  introduced  in  Congress  during 
the  late  Democratic  administrations. 

By  every  standard  of  justice;  even  at  a  sacrifice 
of  principle,  the  North  has  tried  to  placate  and  con- 
ciliate the  South.  I,  myself,  as  a  former  newspaper 
editor,  advocated  a  division  of  the  Negro  vote,  pub- 
lishing a  symposium  of  views  from  leading  Negroes 
throughout  the  country  to  that  end. 

Dr.  Booker  T.  Washington  and  others  have  ad- 
vocated abandonment  of  politics  for  industrial  pur- 
suits to  the  Negro,  adinfinitum. 

WHAT  HAS  IT  ALL  AMOUNTED  TO? 

The  history  of  the  Democratic  Party  in  all  its 
long  years'  production  of  leaders  with  but  rare  ex- 
ceptions  is  one  of  unparalleled  retrogression,  pessi- 
mism,  demagogy,  obstruction,   destruction  and  all- 
108 


Conflict 


hell  shaming,  harranguing  conglomerates,  as  evi- 
dent to  all  the  universe  in  Jim  Tillman,  Vardaman, 
Hoke  Smith,  Tom  Dixon  and  the  other  great  crop 
of  blatant,  braying,  yelping,  howling  and  altogether 
despicable  demagogues  of  equal  or  lesser  degree  in 
their  hell-inspired  and  upas-like  influence. 

If  the  Democratic  party  was  what  we  are  asked  to 
believe  it  is  its  leaders  would  not  be  what  they  are. 

No,  no,  no ;  men  like  Tillman  and  Vardaman  could 
never  be  elected  as  the  mouthpieces  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party. 

The  Democratic  party  is  a  party  of  misrule.  It 
thrives  by  suppressed  speech,  stolen  votes,  appeals  to 
brute  instincts,  by  demagogy  and  anarchy. 

It  is  a  party  which  believes  in  feudalism  and  a 
landed  aristocracy,  with  serfs  to  till  its  lands  and 
support  its  barons  in  profligate  idleness.  Hence  it 
demands  free-trade  to  secure  pauper  made  products 
of  Europe  to  the  disestablishment  of  Northern  fac- 
tories. 

It  is  a  party  which,  given  the  power,  it  would 
lower  our  money  standard  and  substitute  a  depreci- 
ated currency. 

It  is  a  party  as  visionary  and  impracticable  as  it  is 
seen  to  be  brutal  in  the  States  over  which  it  presides. 

It  is  a  party  not  to  be  trusted. 

That  is  the  Democratic  party,  and  just  in  propor- 
tion as  it  is  allowed  to  come  into  control  of  the  nation 
we  may  finally  witness  the  disgraceful  and  humiliat- 
ing spectacle  of  mobs  formed,  riots  incited,  and 
lynching  bees  promoted  in  the  North,  even  at  the 
nation's  capital  by  Southern  Congressmen,  judges, 
colonels,  etc.,  like  Congressmen  Hefflin  of  Alabama 
and  Sullivan  of  Mississippi,  and  other  intolerant  hot- 
heads who  constitute  themselves  prosecutor,  judge 
and  jury  perforce.  But  Wilson,  I  think,  will  prove  a. 
Statesman.  109 


Cle   Conflict 


Just  now,  the  Progressive  party  is  the  party  not 
alone  for  the  Negro,  but  for  all  men  who  aspire  for 
a  "land  of  the  free  and  a  home  for  the  brave,"  but 
when  need  there  be  the  opportune  time  and  the  men, 
yea,  strong  hearts  will  not  be  lacking  to  save  the 
republic. 

In  the  Negro  will  be  found  the  "lump  to  leaven  the 
whole."  Consider  these  figures: 

THE  NEGRO  A  BALANCE  OF  POWER. 

The  United  States  census  for  1900  gives  a  total 
Negro  voting  population  of  2,065,989.  To-day  it  is 
greater.  In  1902  the  excess  of  Negro  votes  over  the 
Republican  majorities  in  the  states  here  given  was 
as  follows: 

Negroes   of  Republican 

voting   ag«.  majority. 

New  York  29,649  8,803 

New  Jersey  21,240  6,634 

Delaware  .  . 8,354  3,249 

Maryland   ....  60,208  2,940 

West  Virginia  ' 14,774  1^873 

Indiana 18,149  7,282 

California 3,413  2>549 

Total   Negro  vote 155^87  43>33O 

Republican  majority  ..    43,330 

Hence  there  were  112,457  Negro  votes  in  excess 
of  the  Republican  majority  over  all  votes  counted  in 
these  seven  states  in  the  state  elections  for  1902,  and 
the  Negro  voters  are  all  Republicans,  with  exceptions 
too  rare  to  be  worth  mentioning. 

The  Negro  vote  in  these  states,  nearly  four  times 
more  than  the  Republican  majority,  was  a  formidable 
no 


C6e    Conflict 

factor  in  the  1904  presidential  election.  And  remem- 
ber that  in  this  computation  is  not  included  the 
States  of  Illinois,  Massachusetts,  Missouri,  Ohio 
and  Pennsylvania,  with  their  big  electoral  count  and 
large  Negro  vote. 

"The  question  is  an  interesting  and  pertinent  one, 
because  there  is  no  doubt  about  the  weight  of  the 
Negro  vote  in  the  aggregate  in  any  election.  If  the 
Negro  vote  had  gone  over  to  Cleveland  from  Harri- 
son in  1886,  Cleveland  would  have  been  elected.  Un- 
der normal  conditions  New  York,  Connecticut  and 
Indiana  would  hardly  be  classed  as  rock-bound  Re- 
publican States.  These  States  alternate  about.  The 
New  York  Negro  voting  population  in  1900  was 
31,000. 

The  McKinley  and  Roosevelt,  and  the  Bryan  and 
Parker  contest  showed  an  anomaly  as  to  vote  casting 
in  the  history  of  the  country,  but  the  Negro  vote  of 
Kentucky,  Maryland,  and  Delaware  was  required  by 
McKinley  in  1895  m  order  to  carry  those  States. 
Hence,  it  is  evident  that  the  Negro  vote  is  a  balance 
of  power  in  close  States  and  communities,  and  in  the 
aggregate  also  in  any  national  election. 

Following  this  line  to  its  logical  analysis :  it  was  I 
who  swung  the  States  of  Massachusetts,  New  York, 
Pennsylvania,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Ohio  and  other 
States  to  the  election  of  Grover  Cleveland. 

It  was  I  who  defeated  Frederick  C.  Gibbs,  in  the 
Eighth  Senatorial  District  in  New  York  in  1885.  Ask 
Stephen  Merritt,  Charles  N.  Taintor  and  others  in 
New  York.  See  my  article  in  "Howard's  Negro- 
American  Magazine,"  as  published  about  that  time. 
See  also  my  book  copyrighted:  "The  Negro  Race, 
Retrospective  and  Prospective,"  about  that  time. 

It  was  I  who  took  Chicago  and  Cook  County, 
Illinois,  from  Carter  Harrison  and  the  Democratic 
in 


C&  e    Conflict 

Party.  Ask  Mr.  Baddenoch,  the  then  Chairman  of 
the  Republican  Committee. 

It  was  I  who  took  Jacksonville,  Fla.,  Duval  Coun- 
ty, and  the  State  of  Florida  from  Bourbon  Democ- 
racy, and  gave  it  to  the  Corporation  or  Liberal 
Democrats — an  element  which  invited  capital,  and 
the  development  of  the  State.  Ask  Messrs.  Luken- 
bill,  J.  E.  T.  Bowden,  Jules  Solomon,  and  the  then 
Democratic  State  Chairman,  Hon.  E.  J.  Treighi. 

See  also  my  paper  in  the  "Forum,"  published  in 
Florida  and  Texas,  issue  Nov.  26th,  1898,  before  and 
after.  See  its  rating  in  Rowell's  and  other  newspa* 
per  directories. 

In  some  movements  which  I  have  been  identified 
with  in  the  past  there  no  doubt  were  some  who 
may  have  thought  they  were  "using"  me,  but  that  is 
another  question. 

It  was  I  who  first  ennunciated  the  policies  actuat- 
ing Roosevelt  in  his  fight  against  the  rapaciousness 
of  corporate  greed,  but  the  hollow  mockery  in  our 
governmental  genius,  based  on  color,  denied  me  that 
hearing  essential  to  attaining  to  that  point  where 
I  could  execute  my  idea. 

It  was  I  who  aided  strongly  in  the  instantaneous 
launching  of  the  New  York  Press,  which  was  the 
main  medium  electing  to  the  presidency  Wm.  Mc- 
Kinley,  the  champion  of  the  economic  protection 
principle.  Messrs.  Bridgeman,  Porter  and  Hatton 
ought  to  remember  me. 

I  have  said  "the  hollow  mockery  in  our  govern- 
mental genius,  based  on  color.  Instance:  December 
4th,  1906,  a  bill  was  introduced  in  Congress  by  Rep- 
resentative Slayden,  of  Texas,  "providing  that  all 
enlisted  men  of  the  army  who  are  colored  or  of 
colored  descent  shall  be  discharged  from  the  service 
of  the  United  States  and  thereafter  no  colored  per- 

112 


Cfte   Conflict 


son  or  person  of  colored  descent  shall  be  enlisted  or 
appointed  in  the  service  of  the  United  States." 

This  certainly  was  an  effort  far  reaching  in  its  de- 
signs, and  worthy  of  the  Democratic  Party.  It  was 
the  effort  of  a  swelled  head  gone  mad,  as  every  hon- 
est and  intelligent  person  the  least  informed  as  to  the 
history  of  this  country  knows  that  of  all  its  citizens, 
native  or  adopted,  none  has  ever  surpassed  the  Ne- 
gro race  in  loyalty  and  patriotism,  and  I  speak  a 
truthful  prophecy  that  "when  the  American  nation 
follows  the  lead  of  this  wild  Texan,  of  Ben.  Tillman, 
Vardaman  and  others  of  their  like,  forgetting  the 
debt  of  gratitude  due  this  government  to  the  Negro, 
that  day  will  the  government  perish  as  a  blot  upon 
civilization,  a  farce — a  travesty  upon  justice,  and 
unworthy  to  exist. 

Yea,  I  already  see  the  decline  of  the  American  na- 
tion in  the  multiplication  of  such  men  as  Ben  Till- 
man, the  extension  of  "Jim  Crowism,"  Negro  dis- 
franchisement,  caste  prejudice,  race  discriminations, 
international  meddling,  of  "yellow  journalism," 
demagogic  appeals  to  passion  and  prejudice;  inten- 
sifying bitterness  and  strife  between  capital  and  la- 
bor, the  visionary  theories,  intemperate  utterances, 
overzealous  and  unsupportable  charges  against  pub- 
lic persons  and  corporations  by  irrational,  impetuous 
and  often  unscrupulous  persons,  who  through  some 
adventitious,  circumlocutions  manner  have  forced 
themselves  into  a  position  of  prominence  and  author- 
ity among  the  people.  Through  the  greed  and  rapa- 
cious avarice  of  certain  American  white  men,  who 
in  plundering  the  Indian  and  despoiling  the  Negro 
has  been  whetted  an  appetite  blinding  such  white 
men  to  every  principle  of  justice  and  honor,  hurry- 
ing the  nation  on  to  a  fearful  cataclysm. 


Clje   Conflict 


As  in  the  past  the  Negro  as  the  nation's  loyal  de- 
fender will  be  needed  in  the  not  distant  future. 

The  people  of  enlightened  Japan  are  not  so  blind 
as  not  to  see  that  it  the  humblest  of  their  race  is 
discriminated  against  on  account  of  his  race  it  will 
only  be  a  question  of  time  when  all  their  race  alike 
will  be  discriminated  against. 

Personal  interest,  where  loss  of  liberty  is  threat- 
ened, compels  men  sometimes  to  form  strange  alli- 
ances, thus  history  records  intrigues  between  indi- 
viduals of  one  nation  with  the  government  of  another 
where  it  is  made  possible  for  a  weak  and  despised 
government  by  outside  financial  aid  and  information 
to  humble,  if  not  overthrow,  a  stronger  and  more 
self-confident  government. 

To-day  there  are  numerous  persons  whose  indi- 
vidual millions  alone  could  finance  a  war  of  greater 
magnitude  than  the  modern  filibustering  expeditions 
promoted  for  commercial  supremacy  and  the  ex- 
ploitation of  peoples  in  the  islands  south  and  west 
of  the  United  States  and  in  Africa  and  China. 

Blood  may  be  "thicker  than  water,"  and  interna- 
tional marriages  may  multiply,  but  the  honest  pat- 
riotic American  statesman  will  still  have  reason  to 
anticipate  a  clash  of  interest  as  long  as  John  Bull  at 
Fort  Sarna  and  Uncle  Sam  at  Fort  Huron  and  else- 
where along  the  great  lakes  and  Canadian  border 
glare  at  each  other  through  cannon's  mouth,  with 
Mexico  and  Brazil  to  the  south  of  us. 

Are  we  as  a  nation  not  a  little  too  selfish  in  our 
consciousness  ? 

Would-be  American  statesmen  may  bluff  and  blow, 
we  may  write  as  we  will,  but  a  "jingo"  diplomacy 
cannot  forever  stave  off  the  ultimate  issue.  "As  we 
sow,  so  shall  we  reap,"  "Laws  of  changeless  justice 
binds,"  etc.  Remember.  .  . 
114 


e   Conflict 


Like  a  Colossus  we  have  spradded  out  over  Ha- 
waii, Porto  Rico,  the  Philippines,  Santo  Domingo 
and  Cuba,  and  yet  we  have  troubles  of  our  own. 

To  the  real  thoughtful  our  position  is  as  the  dog 
with  the  bone,  and  there  is  such  a  thing  as  raising  the 
devil  and  not  being  able  to  put  him  down. 

The  real  Cuban — the  numerical  people  in  that  isl- 
and— are  not  uninformed  of  the  crafty  manner  with 
which  the  white  race  of  America  has  dealt  with  the 
Indian  and  Negro  of  America  and  the  dark  people 
of  Hawaii  and  the  Philippines,  and  yet  it  is  known 
that  the  ostrich  sticks  its  head  in  the  ground  imagin- 
ing its  entire  body  to  be  hidden. 

The  American  government  in  its  "world  power" 
policy  has  planted  its  foot  and  flag  in  parts  remote, 
yet  not  adequately  defended,  while  our  domestic  re- 
lations are  not  of  the  most  assuring,  with  a  vanishing 
hope  for  a  betterment  while  Tillman,  Vardaman, 
Smith,  Davis,  Dixon,  Graves,  the  wild  Texan  Slay- 
den  and  other  blatant  demagogues  continue  their 
preachments  among  us.  Yes,  "We  are  marching  to 
fate  abreast." 

The  contest  between  right  and  wrong  is  eternal. 

Let  the  American  white  race  deal  justly  with  all 
men,  the  Indian  and  Negro  races  included,  and  there 
is  no  problem  on  this  continent.  Then  shall  we  be 
strong  to  face  the  world,  otherwise  we  shall  fall 
when  we  think  we  are  strong. 

We  all  know  the  Southerner  like  a  spoiled  pam- 
pered child  has  been  made  intolerant  through  his  long 
sway  of  undisputed  power  over  the  former  slave,  and 
now  that  the  Negro  is  free  to  dispose  of  his  labor  as 
best  conserves  his  own  interest — is  free  to  change 
in  the  exercise  of  his  choice  for  an  employer  who 
exhibits  the  most  humane  consideration  for  his  ser- 
vices. Thus  the  Southerner  considers  the  new  or 


C!)  e    Conflict 


young  generation  of  Negroes  impertinent  when  they 
dare  to  exhibit  a  will  of  their  own,  be  it  ever  so 
much  in  the  right. 

The  white  Southerner  has  said  it,  and  believes 
that  a  "Negro  has  no  rights  that  a  white  man  is 
bound  to  respect. 

But  ah,  Mr.  Southerner,  the  day  of  "Marse  John" 
and  "Miss  Sue"  is  gone  forever.  It  was  written  at 
Appomattox  when  Lee  humiliatingly  laid  off  his 
sword,  and  as  a  bird  of  plumage  strutted  no  longer. 
This  may  stick  in  your  "crop,"  but  you  can't  get 
over  it,  so  you  had  as  well  run  along,  and  be  a  good 
little  baby. 

Your  naughty  intolerance,  bigotry  and  narrov/ 
prejudice  has  long  held  back  the  full  development 
of  the  beautiful  southland,  and  now  it  cannot  be 
that  the  North,  the  East  and  the  West  will  recede 
to  the  barbaric  civilization  of  the  South,  and  thus 
America  become  a  corrupting  menace  to  all  the  na- 
tions of  the  earth? 

If  so,  then  the  world  goes  back  to  beastly  anar- 
chism, though  rich  in  material  wealth. 

When  the  South  has  substituted  the  Negro  laborers 
for  alien  laborers,  or  black  for  white  labor,  will 
Southern  white  men  be  more  just  and  tolerant  to 
their  imported  laborers? 

From  all  accounts  it  does  not  appear  so;  as  for 
instance,  white  peonage  in  Georgia,  in  Florida  and 
elsewhere  in  the  South,  and  bloodshed  in  Louisiana 
some  years  ago  when  Italian  laborers  resisted  being 
reduced  to  the  Southern  ideas  concerning  laborers. 

Again,  I  ask,  is  the  world  through  the  unbrotherly 
greed  of  mankind  by  legislative  and  treaty  enact- 
ments to  be  made  a  prison  restricting  people  in  their 
desire  to  travel  from  one  place  to  another,  from  one 
country  to  another;  excepting  persons  of  leisure  or 
116 


Cfce    Conflict 


such  as  can  afiord  to  loaf  because  of  their  wealth  ? 

I  see  developing  a  false  and  dangerous  Politico- 
Industrial  Economy. 

May  it  not  be  possible  that  other  governments  are 
as  astute  in  diplomacy  as  our  great  government? 

In  our  "World  Power"  tour  it  would  appear  the 
part  of  wisdom  to  make  home  secure  before  ventur- 
ing into  new  fields,  weakening  by  spreading ;  leaving 
weak  places  undefended  as  an  opening  for  the  enemy 
when  we  have  become  too  deeply  enmeshed  to  retrace 
our  steps — then,  all  is  lost. 

Yea,  "pride  goeth  before  a  fall." 

CONCLUSION. 

After  being  forcibly  and  by  stealth  brought  from 
his  native  land  by  the  white  man  two  hundred  and 
forty-seven  years  ago,  the  Negro  was  in  America 
subjected  to  a  degradation  the  like  of  which  never 
before  distressed  any  human  soul,  and  yet,  though 
saturated  with  his  heart's  blood,  the  hounds  of  Hell  in 
human  guise  pursue  him  with  malignant  hate,  though 
he  never  did  them  wrong  or  harm.  Then  is  there 
not  a  cause  that  he  should  be  defended?  Let  Christ, 
let  the  human  heart,  yea,  let  all  the  angelic  host  that 
mortal  mind  has  capacity  to  conceive  of,  answer.  The 
timid  may  falter,  and  demons  may  howl,  but  while 
more  than  ten  millions  of  God-created  souls  are 
hounded,  caricatured,  misrepresented,  and  savagely 
slaughtered,  and  no  power  seeming  able  to  call  a  halt, 
can  it  be  conceived  that  any  righteous  man  or  woman 
would  cry  halt  when,  as  in  this  book,  I  attempt  to 
throw  my  hand  into  the  throat  of  the  assassins  of  a 
race  of  unoffending,  patriotic,  magnanimous  people. 

"Woe  to  him  by  whom  the  offence  cometh"  is 
God's  edict. 

117 


CHe    Conflict 


Forty-eight  years*  ago,  when  the  shackles  were 
struck  from  the  Negro,  he  stood  without  a  knowledge 
of  letters,  without  money — a  poor,  trembling,  quak- 
ing, human  outcast,  clothed  with  more  than  twenty- 
four  hundred  years  of  ignorance,  vice,  superstition, 
fanaticism  and  other  attendant  evils ;  confronted  by 
a  gigantic  combination  of  wealth,  intelligence  and 
statesmanship  of  a  mighty  confederacy,  combined  to 
hold  him  down  and  if  possible  crush  him  out,  but 
by  Northern  philanthropy,  supplemented  by  his  own 
endeavor,  the  seed  of  liberty  and  intelligence  has 
been  deeply  sown  and  is  now  bearing  fruit,  and  no 
power  in  the  universe  can  check  the  swelling  tide. 
He  is  waxing  into  a  mighty  race  beneath  the  giant 
upas-like  tree  of  oppression.  The  world  hears  afar 
off  the  muffled,  thunderous,  reverberation  of  the  on- 
ward march  of  a  mighty  rival  in  good  and  righteous 
endeavor. 

Yea,  he  is  coming  over  the  hills  of  ignorance  and 
oppression,  and  demonstrating  to  the  ill-informed 
world  that: 

"Merit  is  the  source  of  life, 

Through  the  fiercest  earthly  strife. 
That  sterling  merit  brings  him  safe, 

Whom  the  gods  such  a  boon  vouchsafes. 
That  first  since  Africa  was  known 

Many  a  nation  's  overthrown, 
In  oblivion's  sea  has  died, 

All  unfit  to  stem  the  tide. 
Thus,  since  Africa  arose, 
Her  success  confounds  her  foes. 
Watchful,  faithful,  true  and  pure, 
She  must  evermore  endure." 
118 


Cfje   Conflict 


"What  stronger  breastplate  than  a  heart  untainted? 
Thrice  is  he  armed  who  hath  his  quarrel  just, 
And  he  but  naked,  though  locked  up  in  steel, 
Whose  conscience  is  with  injustice  corrupted." 

Oh,  will  not  the  white  man  of  America  deal  justly ! 


[The  End] 


119 


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